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LOYOLA ENGLISH CLASSICS 



A Christmas Carol 

IN PROSE 
By CHARLES DICKENS 

Edited for School Use 
By CAROL L. BERNHARDT, S. J. 



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Loyola University Press 

CHICAGO 



LOYOLA ENGLISH CLASSICS 



A Christmas Carol 

IN PROSE 

BEING A GHOST STORY OF CHRISTMAS 



By 

CHARLES DICKENS 

WITH AN ACCOUNT OF 

THE AUTHOR'S LIFE AND WORKS 

NOTES 

QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES 

A Text Book for. Classes of 

First Year High School 

Prepared by 

CAROL L. BERNHARDT, S.J. 







LOYOLA UNIVERSITY PRESS 

CHICAGO, ILL. 






vZ 



6 fe * 



^ 



COPYRIGHT, 1922 

BY 

LOYOLA UNIVERSITY 

CHICAGO. ILL. 



SEP 19 '22 

©CI.A6B1882 



PREFACE 



a 



The study of the English prose author in the first 
year of high sehool has for its practical aim (1) the 
exemplification of the precepts in regard to the essen- 
tials of English Grammar; (2) the extension of the 
student's range of knowledge in the matter of English 
Literature; (3) the increase of vocabulary, so that the 
fine practical fruit of all this will be the student 's 
ability to write for himself clear grammatical English 
sentences. 

Besides this manifold aim 'the study ought to help 
the student to an exercise of imagination leading him 
to a primary appreciation of what makes true literature. 

All this the present little book is modestly ambitious 
to do. The teacher will find these aims kept prominent 
in the introduction, the notes, the questions, the exer- 
cises. Personal enthusiasm on the teacher's part will 
supply kindred methods of treatment. 



6 LOYOLA ENGLISH CLASSICS 

and not over-particularly-taken-care-of boy." This poor boy 
rose to be the most sympathetic creator of the lives of children, 
for all that his own childhood was so unfortunate, and we, too, 
get to love the children of his fancy, "Little Nell," "Paul 
Dombey," "Pi])." "Jo." 

Education. — His earliest passion was for reading. This 
had been awakened by his mother, who taught him his first 
lessons in English, and later, a little Latin. He read what books 
he could procure. In his father's house there was a blessed 
room containing a small collection of books. These the young 
Charles devoured, and among them were : Bobinson Crusoe, 
Arabian Nights, Don Quixote, The Vicar of Wakefield. Even 
as a boy lie was desirous of learning and eager for an educa- 
tion. A quarrel arose between his father and his employer 
at the blacking factory, and John Dickens' eyes were opened 
to his son's neglected schooling. Some amends were made. 
Charles was sent to a school kept by a Mr. Jones, and known 
as Wellington's Academy. The fertility of Dickens' brain at 
this time is indicated in the words of one of his schoolmates, 
who says of him : 

He invented what we termed a '"lingo," pro- 
duced by the addition of a few letters of the same 
sound to every word; and it was our ambition, 
walking and talking thus along the street, to be 

considered foreigners. 

.Dickens was little more than fourteen years old, when he 
quitted the school, and he spent a short time after that in 
another school kept by a Mr. Dawson. But it is the father 
of Charles Dickens who best describes his boy's education, for 
when he was asked: "Where was your son educated?" he 
answered: "Why. indeed, sir. — ha, ha! he may be said to 
have educated himself." 

Youth. — Charles Dickens, after leaving school, became a 
sort of office boy to Mr. Blackmore, a solicitor; but the boy 
did not long rest content with this employment. He took up 
the study of shorthand, to prepare himself to become a re- 
porter, and so well did he succeed, that one of his colleagues 
said of him: "There never WAS such a shorthand writer." 
Dickens was working up to his place in life. From reporting 
what others had to say. he took to saying and publishing 



A CHRISTMAS CAROL / 

thing's which he had to say himself. He was married to 
Catherine Hogarth in 1836, the same year that gave to the 
world the book that really first set him among the great 
English writers. 

Works. — That book was The Posthumous Papers of the 
Pickwick Club, published in serial form, as were most of his 
books, and it treated with wholly delightful ludierousness the 
romantic adventures of a fat old man of the middle classes. 
There followed Oliver Twist, full of tenderness and tragedy, 
about a child born in a workhouse, who remains unpolluted 
amidst crime. Nicholas Nickleby flays the methods of the 
schools of the period. The pathetic story of Little Nell is told 
in The Old Curiosity Shop. Barnaby Pudge is something of 
a historical novel, in which the Gordon riots figure. Dickens 
kept on ceaselessly sending out his creations. Martin Chuzzle- 
wit attacks avarice in the person of Jonas Chuzzlewit, and 
slashes selfishness in the person of Pecksniff; while pride in 
the person of Dotnbey rides to a fall in Dombey and Son. 
What is considered to be, by many, his best book, now ap- 
peared, David Copperfield, in which he largely drew pictures 
from his own life. Bleak House tells the story of a case at 
law long drawn out, and ridicules the then current procedure. 
Hard Times shows that tacts and figures are not the whole of 
life, nor even vastly important items, unless running parallel 
with affection and love for which the book pleads. Little 
Dorrit followed. In it Dickens scores British officialism. Then 
came A Tale of Two Cities, Paris and London, with its recital 
of dramatic sacrifice. Great Expectations relates the career 
of Pip and his consternation and indecision upon finding out 
who his generous benefactor really was. Our Mutual Friend 
has some not very difficult mystery in it, but the Mystery of 
Edwin Drood, was not solved even by Dickens himself, for the 
book was his last and was left unfinished. 

Popularity. — Once Pickwick had been published, Dickens 
became literally the talk of the town, tradesmen even chris- 
tening their goods by its name. There were four hundred 
copies of Part I prepared, and of Part 15 forty thousand. 
Each new book received new acclaim, the popularity of 
Pickwick not abating, and Sam Weller and Mr. Pickwick, 
who were apparently only ephemeral creatures fashioned by 
Dickens to amuse the readers of the passing day, seem now 



*S LOYOLA ENGLISH CLASSICS 

destined to last as long as the language. After Barnaby 
Rudge was published Dickens was invited to visit Edinburgh, 
and here the first great tribute of public recognition was paid 
to him, inasmuch as he was regaled at a splendid banquet and 
the freedom of the city was voted him. It is safe to say that 
no other writer has made so many characters vivid and endur- 
ing, and all the world that reads and much of it that doesn't 
knows Micawber, Uriah Heep, Fagin the Jew, Nancy Sykes 
and a host of others. It is part of Dickens' power that his 
minor characters are made as distinct and memorable as his 
major ones. The people read him and were pleased; he put 
joy into human life, so that Daniel Webster was led to declare 
that Dickens did more for the poor than all Great Britain's 
statesmen. John Forster, who wrote the life of Dickens, has 
calculated that during the twelve years succeeding his death, 
about 4,239.000 volumes of his works w*are sold in Britain. 
In the power to interest for length of time, lies the test of a 
writer's worth. Dickens holds on well. Though the astound- 
ing popularity of his own day has diminished somewhat, he 
is still widely read and he surely stands secure among the 
novelists of the nineteenth century, Scott, Thackeray, Char- 
lotte Bronte, Emily Bronte, George Eliot, Reade, Trollope, 
Meredith. 

Humor. — Man is a laughing animal, and enjoys that char- 
acteristic of laughter to the full extent oi the word; and so 
it was that Dickens' ability to make comic people and laugh- 
able incidents renders him acceptable to all. This quality of 
humor is perhaps predominant; it is the whole of Pickwick, 
and is never absent from his other books. You must laugh 
at Mould, the undertaker, who said Sairey Gamp was such 
a good woman that he would bury her free and do it neat, 
too ; and Sairey Gamp's own volubility is a fount of fun. 
Dickens saw the infinite interestingness of the universe, for he 
revelled in the humor of life. If he was fain to poke fun at 
natural defects, it was all kindly keen and charitably meant. 
Dickens tickles our ribs and makes us laugh. 

Pathos. — Dickens had supreme power in moving to tears. 
Sorrow stalks all over this world of ours, and nowhere is it 
so striking as in the case of the poor. Dickens has immortal- 
ized sorrow in fiction, though it had already been part of all 



A CHRISTMAS CAROL 9 

great literature in other types. Little Paul Dombey's death 
makes us sadly reflective, touches the heart of the world and 
draws tears of sympathy. The wreck in David Copperfield 
is full of sorrow. -Dickens teases our eyes and makes us weep. 

Horror. — In depicting scenes of horror, too, Dickens has a 
power that is peculiarly his; as may be seen, for example, in 
the return of Jonas Chuzzlewit in the storm, the pictures of 
the French Revolution in A Tale of Two Cities, and the 
description of dragging the river for dead bodies in Our 
Mutual Friend. Dickens pierces our flesh and makes us 
shudder. 

Style.— Dickens' style is abundantly clear. There is no 
mistaking his meaning. He uses words with tine dexterity. 
Master of description, he has so described his persons and 
places that we lose sight of the fact that they are merely 
Inscriptions, and they become for us actual persons and actual 
places. This is greatly due to the circumstance that this great 
writer could put into his pages a perfect welter of details, 
delaying on them, insisting on them, repeating them. His 
books are singularly free from vile suggestions, and no foul 
words can be discovered there. Though he often treats of 
crime and poverty, his language is not base or low, but sus- 
tains a noble level of purity. All this was in accord with his 
own personal character, for he was industrious to an extent 
that brings admiration for his energy; kind hearted so truly 
that he even feels for the sorrows of his own brain-children; 
affectionate, as we can see from his tender letters to his chil- 
dren ; temperate in living, as his whole life reveals ; and though 
he failed to see the necessity of dogma in religion, he preached 
in a practical way a practical Christianity. Hoping that his 
books would make people better, he banned evil from them, 
and he crammed good into them, so that scarcely a page of 
all the thousands he has written but is fit to be put into the 
hands of the purest child. He is sometimes criticized on the 
score of exaggeration. 

Travels. — Dickens was of a restless disposition. He had 
to be actively busy all the time. He could write for hour 
after hour, most of his work being done in the morning. He 
was a great walker, and in all his walks his eyes were open to 
take in tiniest details. He traveled to Italy, France, Switzer- 



10 LOYOLA ENGLISH CLASSICS 

land, Ireland, Scotland, and made two visits to America. He 
saw Boston, Worcester, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, 
Washington, St. Louis, Chicago, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Buf- 
falo. In two books he has left impressions of America. His 
American Notes caused some excitement here in our own land, 
because Dickens criticized so severely what he deemed our 
faults. In Martin Chuzzlewit some scenes are laid in America. 

Readings. — In the later years of his life, Dickens took to 
reading in public from his works. These readings were im- 
mensely popular; crowds thronged to him, and he had his 
audience now in uproarious laughter, now bathed in tears. All 
available space was occupied by hearers, who even lay down 
upon the floor around him, for want of other accommodation. 
A person who was present thus describes one of the readings : 
"A two hours' storm of excitement and pleasure. They actu- 
ally murmured and applauded right away into their carriages 
and down the street." Of one of his readings in Ireland, 
Dickens declared he had never seen men cry so undisguisedly 
as they did over a passage from Dombey and Son; and when 
he read about Sairey (lamp, his audience laughed so much 
that he fiimself lost control of his face and laughed aloud and 
paused from reading. Dickens was an actor of some ability 
and often engaged in amateur theatricals. The great actor, 
Macready, was one of his close friends. 

Contemporaries. — Of the novelists of Dickens' day, Thack- 
eray's name is most often linked with his. These two often 
came into personal contact and Thackeray once came forward 
as a possible illustrator for Dickens. The great author of 
Vanity Fair, Pendennis, The Newcomes, Henry Esmond, is 
the nearest, indeed, the only rival Dickens had in his own 
time. Wilkie Collins, whose Woman in White, though a bit 
old-fashioned, is full of thrills, and whose The Moonstone has 
been affirmed to be the best detective story in the language, 
was a personal friend of Dickens, and collaborated with him 
in many of his writings. Dickens knew, too. in an intimate 
way, Bulwer-Lytton, whose Last Days of Pompeii is still read, 
and whose play of Richelieu can still attract to the theatres. 
George Eliot, whose Mill on the Floss, Adam Bede, Silas 
Marner are part of literature, was writing in Dickens' day, 
and he read her Scenes of Clerical Life when it first appeared 
and thought highly of it. Dickens met on most friendly terms 



A CHRISTMAS CAROL 11 

our own household poet Longfellow, and our charming, gentle 
essayist Washington Irving. Tennyson always found a 'warm 
welcome from Dickens, who greatly admired the Idyls of the 
King, and named one of his children Alfred Tennyson Dickens. 
For Browning", born in the same year as Dickens, Dickens 
expressed his admiration. 

Death.— For the last years of his life, Dickens had his 
home at Gad's Hill. Here, on the 9th of June, 1870, he died. 
He had spent all of the 8th writing- on his last book, Edwin, 
Brood. He had really worn himself out by his repeated exer- 
tions in his readings, when he was not in prime physical 
condition. The end was not wholly unlooked for, but it was 
sudden enough when it came. He dropped to the floor at 
supper time on the evening of the 8th, and his last spoken 
words were "on the ground." The news of his death spread 
round the world, and lavish praises of Dickens came from 
every quarter. The London Times suggested that he be buried 
in Westminster Abbey; the suggestion met with general ap- 
proval and was carried into execution. There, the kindly 
Charles Dickens was laid to rest. He who by his writings 
made multitudes enjoy the humor and the pathos of life was 
not wholly unworthy of the remark passed concerning him,, 
"His death eclipsed the gayety of nations." 

References. — Dickens' life by his friend John Forster in 
three volumes is interesting and authoritative. Chesterton has 
written an enthusiastic critical study of Dickens. Funda- 
mental English, by John P. McNichols, S. J., is a text book, 
mostly exercises, which will be largely and helpfully suggestive 
of work to be done with The Christmas Carol. 



A CHRISTMAS CAROL 



Published in 1843, just a few days before Christmas, 
A Christmas Carol met with a rollicking reception- It had 
been the work of leisure times, in between the writing of 
Martin Chuzzl&wit. Dickens was wholly engrossed with the 
idea of it ; it possessed him, and up and down the dark Lon- 
don streets he trudged, fifteen, twenty miles, many nights, 
the thought of it swirling through his head, weeping over it, 
on his own testimony, then laughing, then weeping again, and 
getting tremendously worked up over it. Such enthusiasm 
must needs result in the written delight of it all. On the first 
day of sale 6,000 copes, the whole first edition was sold. A 
perfect Hood of letters flowed in upon the author telling him 
how people liked the story. "Blessings on your kind heart," 
wrote Jeffrey, a foremost critic of that day, "you should be 
happy yourself, for you may be sure you have done more 
good by this little publication, fostered more kindly feelings 
and prompted more positive acts of beneficence than can be 
traced to all the pulpits and confessionals since Christmas 
1842." And Thackeray exclaimed: "Who can listen to ob- 
jections regarding such a book as this? It seems to me a 
national benefit, and to every man or woman who reads it a 
personal kindness." 

Christmas was a day of days for Dickens. He had the 
custom on Christmas Eves of going to see the marketings for 
the festival; was especially fond of wandering about in poor 
neighborhoods on the day itself, delightedly almost as a child 
eyeing the preparations for the Christmas dinner. A Christ- 
mas Carol was one of his frequent readings and he seemed to 
revel in it. Once he wrote after a reading — "I wish you could 
have seen them .... when Scrooge woke in the Carol and 
talked to the boy outside the window." In another letter he 
put the Carol philosophy down as "cheerful views, sharp 
anatomization of humbug, jolly good temper." The story is 
full of pictures and people and bubbles over with enjoyment. 
It is a strong plea for the glad celebration of Christmas Day, 
mindful of the spiritual fact that it is Christy birthday. 

12 



PREFACE 



I have endeavored in this Ghostly little book, to raise the 
Ghost of an Idea, which shall not put my readers out of 
humour with themselves, with each other, with the season, or 
with me. May it haunt their houses pleasantly, and no one 
wish to lay it. 

Their faithful friend 'and Servant, 

C. D. 
December, 1843. 



13 



A CHRISTMAS CAROL 



STAVE ONE 2 

marley's ghost 3 

Marley was dead to begin with. There is no doubt 
whatever about that. The register of his burial was 
signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker, and 
the chief mourner. Scrooge signed 4 it. And Scrooge's 
name was good upon the 'Change for anything he chose 
to put his hand to. 

Old Marley was as dead as a door-nail. 1 
Mind! I don't mean to say that I know, of my own 
knowledge, what there is particularly dead about a 
door-nail. I might have been inclined, myself, to regard 
a coffin-nail as the deadest piece of ironmongery in the 
trade. But the wisdom of our ancestors is in the simile ; 
and my unhallowed hands shall not disturb it, or the 
Country's done for. You will therefore permit me to 
repeat, emphatically, that Marley was as dead as a 
door-nail. 

Scrooge knew he was dead? Of course he did. How 
could it be otherwise 1 ? Scrooge and he were partners 
for I don't know how many years. Scrooge was his sole 
executor, his sole administrator, his sole assign, his sole 
residuary legatee, his sole friend, and his sole 6 mourner. 
And even Scrooge was not so dreadfully cut up by the 
sad event, but that he was an excellent man of business 
on the very day of the funeral, and solemnized it with 
an undoubted bargain. 

'The mention of Marley's funeral brings me back to 
the point I started from. There is n© doubt that .Marley 
was dead. This must be distinctly understood, or 
nothing wonderful can come of the story I am going to 
relate. 7 If we were not perfectly convinced that Ham- 

15 



16 LOYOLA ENGLISH CLASSICS 

let 's Father died before the play began, there would be 
nothing more remarkable in his taking a stroll at night, 
in an easterly wind, upon his own ramparts, than there 
would be in any other middle-aged gentleman rashly 
turning out after dark in a breezy spot — say St. Paul's 
Churchyard 1 for instance — literally to astonish his son's 
weak mind. 

Scrooge never painted out old Marley's name. There 
it stood, years afterwards, above the warehouse door: 
Scrooge and Marley. The firm was known as Scrooge 
and Marley. Sometimes people new to the business 
called Scrooge Scrooge, and sometimes Marley, but he 
answered to both names. It was all the same to him. 

Oh ! But he was a tight-fisted hand at the grindstone, 
Scrooge ! a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, 
clutching, covetous, old sinner! Hard and sharp as a 
flint, from which no steel had ever struck out generous 
lire ; secret, and self-contained and solitary as an oyster. 
The cold within him froze 2 his old features, 3 nipped his 
pointed nose, shrivelled his cheek, stiffened his gait ; 
made his eyes red, his thin lips blue; and spoke out 
shrewdly in his grating voice. A frosty rime was on his 
head, and on his eyebrows, and his wiry chin. He 
carried his own low temperature always about with him ; 
he iced his office in the dog-days; and didn't thaw it one 
degree at Christmas. 4 

External heat and cold had little influence on 
Scrooge. No warmth could warm, no wintry weather 
chill him. No wind that blew was bitterer than he, no 
falling snow was more intent upon its purpose, no pelt- 
ing rain less open to entreaty. Foul weather didn't 
know where to have him. The heaviest rain, and snow, 
and hail, and sleet, could boast of the advantage over 
him in only one respect — they often "came down" hand- 
somely, and Scrooge never did. 5 

Nobody ever stopped him in the street to say. with 
gladsome looks, "My dear Scrooge, how are you? AYhen 
will you come to see me % ' ' No beggars implored him to 



A CHRISTMAS CAROL 17 

bestow a trifle, no children asked him what it was 
o'clock, no man or woman ever once in all his life 
inquired the way to snch and such a place, of Scrooge. 
Even the blind men's dogs appeared to know him; and 
when they saw him coming on. would tug their owners 
into doorways and up courts ; and then would wag then- 
tails as though they said. "No eye at all is better than 
an evil eye. dark master ! ' -1 

But what did Scrooge care? It was the very thing 
he liked. To edge his way along the crowded paths of 
life, warning all human sympathy to keep its distance, 
was what the knowing ones call "nuts" 2 to Scrooge. 

Once upon a time, — of all the good days in the year, 
on Christmas Eve, — old Scrooge sat busy in his counting- 
house. It was cold, bleak, biting weather, foggy withal, 
and he could hear the people in the court outside go 
wheezing up and down, beating their hands upon their 
breasts, and stamping their feet upon the pavement 
stones to warm them. The city clocks had just only gone 
three, but it was quite dark already, — it had not been 
light all day. — and candles were flaring in the windows 
of the neighboring offices, like ruddy smears upon the 
palpable brown air. The fog came pouring in at every 
chink and keyhole, and was so dense without, that, 
although the court was of the. narrowest, the houses 
opposite were mere phantoms. To see the dingy cloud 
come drooping down, obscuring everything, one might 
have thought that Nature lived hard by, and was brew- 
ing on a large scale. 3 

The door of Scrooge's counting-house was open, that 
he might keep his eye upon his clerk, who, in a dismal 
little cell beyond, a sort of tank, was copying letters. 
Scrooge had a very small fire, but the clerk's fire was 
so very much smaller that it looked like one coal. But 
he couldn't replenish it, for Scrooge kept the coal-box 
in his own room ; and so surely as the clerk came in with 
the shovel, the master predicted that it would be neces- 
sary for them to part. Wherefore the clerk put on 



18 LOYOLA ENGLISH CLASSICS 

his white comforter, 1 and tried to warm himself at the 
candle ; in which effort, not being a man of strong 
imagination, he failed. 

2 "A merry Christmas, uncle! God save you!" cried 
a cheerful voice. 3 It was the voice of Scrooge's nephew, 
who came upon him so quickly that this was the first 
intimation he had of his approach. 

"Bah!" said Scrooge. "Humbug!" 

He had so heated himself with rapid walking in the 
fog and frost, this nephew of Scrooge's, that he was all 
in a glow ; his face was ruddy and handsome ; his eyes 
sparkled, and his breath smoked again. 

"Christmas a humbug, uncle!" said Scrooge's 
nephew. "You don't mean that, I am sure?" 

"I do," said Scrooge. "Merry Christmas! What 
right have you to be merry? What reason have you to 
be merry ? You 're poor enough. ' ' 

■ "Come then," returned the nephew gay] v. "What 
right have you to be dismal? What reason nave you to 
be morose : You 're rich enough. ' H 

Scrooge, having no better answer ready on the spur 
of the moment, said ' ' Bah ! ' ' again ; and followed it up 
with "Humbug!" 

"Don 't be cross, uncle ! ' ' said the nepheAv. 

"What else can I be," returned the uncle, "when I 
live in such a world of fools as this ? Merry Christmas ! 
Out upon merry Christmas! What's Christmas-time to 
you but a time for paying bills without money; a time 
for finding yourself a year older, and not an hour richer ; 
a time for balancing your books, and having every item 
in 'em through a round dozen of months presented dead 
against you? If I could work my will," said Scrooge 
indignantly, "every idiot wmo goes' about with 'Merry 
Christmas' on his lips should be boiled with his own 
pudding, and buried with a stake of holly through his 
heart. 5 He should!" 

' ' Uncle ! ' ' pleaded the nephew. 

' ' Nephew ! ' ' returned the uncle sternly, ' 'keep Christ- 
.mas in your own way, and let me keep it in mine." 



A CHRISTMAS CAROL 19 

"Keep it!" repeated Scrooge's nephew. "But you 
don't keep it." 

"Let me leave it alone, then," said Scrooge. "Much 
good may it do you ! Much good it has ever done you ! ' ' 

"There are many things from which I might have 
derived good by which I have not profited, I dare say," 
returned the nephew, "Christmas among the rest. But 
I am sure I have always thought of Christmas-time, 
when it has come round, — apart from the veneration due 
to its sacred name and origin, if anything belonging to 
it can be apart from that, — as a good time ; a kind, for- 
giving, charitable, pleasant time; the only time I know 
of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and 
women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts 
freely, and to think of people below them as if they 
really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not an- 
other race of creatures bound on other journeys. And 
therefore, uncle, though it has never put a scrap of gold 
or silver in my pocket, I believe that it has done me good, 
and will do me good ; and I say ; God bless it ! "* 

The clerk in the tank involuntarily applauded. Be- 
coming immediately sensible of the impropriety, he 
poked the fire, and extinguished the last frail spark* for- 
ever. 2 

"Let me hear another sound from you/' said Scrooge, 
"and you'll keep your Christmas by losing your situa- 
tion! You're quite a powerful speaker, sir," he added, 
turning to his nephew. "I wonder you don't go into 
Parliament. ' ' 

"Don't be angry, uncle. Come! Dine with us to- 
morrow. ' ' 3 

Scrooge said that he would see him . Yes, 

indeed, he did. He went the whole length of the 
expression, and said that he would see him in that 
extremity first. 

' ' But why % ' ' cried Scrooge 's nephew. k ' Why ? ' ?4 

"Why did you get married?" said Scrooge. 

' ' Because I fell in love. 



20 LOYOLA ENGLISH CLASSICS 

" Because you fell in love!" growled Scrooge, as if 
that were the only thing in the world more ridiculous 
than a merry Christmas. "Good afternoon!'' 

"Nay. uncle, but you never came to see me before 
that happened. Why give it as a reason for not coming 
now?" 

"Good afternoon/' said Scrooge. 

"I want nothing from you; I ask nothing of you: 
why cannot we be friends?" 

' * Good afternoon ! ' ' said Scrooge. 

"I am sorry, with all my heart, to find you so reso- 
lute. \Ye have never had any quarrel, to which I have 
been a party. But I have made the trial in homage to 
Christmas, and I'll keep my Christmas humor to the last. 
So A Merry Christmas, uncle ! ' ' 

"Good afternoon," said Scrooge. 

• " And A Happy New Year ! ' ' 

' ' Good afternoon ! ' ' said Scrooge. 

His nephew left the room without an angry word, 
notwithstanding. He stopped at the outer door to bestow 
the greetings of the season on the clerk, who, cold as 
he was, was warmer than Scrooge, for he returned them 
cordially. 

"There's another fellow," muttered Scrooge, who 
overheard him; "my clerk, with fifteen shillings a week, 
and a wife and family, talking about a merry Christmas. 
I'll retire to Bedlam." 1 

This lunatic, in letting Scrooge's nephew out, had let 
two other people in. They were portly gentlemen, 
pleasant to behold, and now stood, with their hats off, in 
Scrooge's office. They had books and papers in their 
hands, and bowed to him. 

"Scrooge and Marley 's, I believe." said one of the 
gentlemen, referring to his list. "Have I the pleasure 
of addressing Mr. Scrooge, or Marley?" 

"Mr. Marley has been dead these seven years," 
Scrooge replied. "He died seven years ago, this very 
night." 1 ' 



A CHRISTMAS CAROL 21 

* k We have no doubt his liberality is well represented 
by his surviving partner/' said the gentleman, present- 
ing his credentials. 

It certainly was; for they had been two kindred 
spirits. 1 At the ominous word "liberality," Scrooge 
frowned, and shook his head, and handed the credentials 
back. 

"At this festive season of the year, Mr. Scrooge," 
said the gentleman, taking up a pen, " it is more than 
usually desirable that we should make some slight 
provision for the poor and destitute, who suffer greatly 
at the present time. Many thousands are in want of 
common necessaries ; hundreds of thousands are in want 
of common comforts, sir." 

"Are there no prisons?" asked Scrooge. 

1 ' Plenty of prisons, ' ' said the gentleman, laying down 
the pen again. 

"And the Union workhouses?" 2 demanded Scrooge. 
' ' Are they still in operation ? ' ' 

"They are. Still." returned the gentleman, "I wish 
I could say they were not. ' ' 

"The Treadmill 3 and the Poor Law 4 are in full vigor, 
then?" said Scrooge. 

"Both very busy, sir.'' 

"Oh! I was afraid, from what you said at first, that 
something had occurred to stop them in their useful 
course, ' ' said Scrooge. ' * I 'm very glad to hear it. ' ' 

"Under the impression that they scarcely furnish 
Christian cheer of mind or body to the multitude," re- 
turned the gentleman, "a few of us are endeavoring to 
raise a fund to buy the poor some meat and drink, and 
means of warmth. We choose this time, because it is 
a time, of all others, when Want is keenly felt, and 
Abundance rejoices. What shall I put you down for?" 

"Nothing!" Scrooge replied. 

"You wish to be anonymous?" 

"I wish to be left alone," said Scrooge. "Since you 
ask me what I wish, gentlemen, that is my answer. I 



22 LOYOLA ENGLISH CLASSICS 

don't make merry myself at Christmas, and I can't 
afford to make idle people merry. I help to support the 
establishments I have mentioned, — they cost enough ; and 
those who are badly off must go there." 

"Many can't go there ; and many would rather die." 

"If they would rather die," said Scrooge, "they had 
better do it, and decrease the surplus population. Be- 
sides, — excuse me, — I don't know that." 

"But you might know it," observed the gentleman. 

"It's not my business," Scrooge returned. It's 
enough for a man to understand his own business, and 
not to interfere with other people's. Mine occupies me 
constantly. Good afternoon, gentlemen!" 

Seeing clearly that it would be useless to pursue their 
point, the gentlemen withdrew. Scrooge resumed his 
labors with an improved opinion of himself, and in a 
more facetious temper than was usual with him. 1 

Meanwhile the fog and darkness thickened so that 
people ran about with flaring links, 2 proffering their 
services to go before horses in carriages, and conduct 
them on their way. The ancient tower of a church, 
whose gruff old bell was always peeping slyly down at 
Scrooge out of a Gothic window in the wall, became in- 
visible, and struck the hours and quarters in the clouds, 
with tremulous vibrations afterwards, as if its teeth were 
chattering in its frozen head up there. The cold became 
intense. In the main street, at the corner of the court, 
some laborers were repairing the gas-pipes, and had 
lighted a great fire in a brasier. round which a party of 
ragged men and boys were gathered, warming their 
hands and winking their eyes before the blaze, in rap- 
ture. The water-plug being left in solitude, its overflow- 
ings suddenly congealed, and turned to misanthropic 
ice. The brightness of the shops, where holly sprigs and 
berries crackled in the lamp heat of the windows, made 
pale faces ruddy as they passed. Poulterers' and gro- 
cers' trades became a splendid joke; a glorious pageant, 
with which it was next to impossible to believe that such 



A CHRISTMAS CAROL 23 

dull principles as bargain and sale had anything to do. 
The Lord Mayor, in the stronghold of the mighty Man- 
sion House, gave orders to his fifty cooks and butlers to 
keep Christmas as a Lord Mayor 's household should ; and 
even the little tailor, whom he had fined five shillings on 
the previous Monday for being drunk and bloodthirsty 
in the streets, stirred up tomorrow's pudding in his 
garret, while his lean wife and the baby sallied out to 
buy the beef. 

Foggier yet, and colder ! Piercing, searching, biting 
cold. 1 If the good Saint Dunstan 2 had but nipped the 
Evil Spirit's nose with a touch of such weather as that, 
instead of using his familiar weapons, then, indeed, he 
would have roared to lusty purpose. The owner of one 
scant young nose, 3 gnawed and mumbled by the hungry 
cold as bones are gnawed by dogs, stooped down at 
Scrooge 's keyhole to regale him with a Christmas carol ; 4 
but at the first sound of 

God bless you, merry gentleman, 
May nothing you dismay, 

Scrooge seized the ruler with such energy of action, that 
the singer fled in terror, leaving the keyhole to the fog 
and even more congenial frost. 5 

At length the hour of shutting up the counting-house 
arrived. With an ill-will Scrooge dismounted from his 
stool, and tacitly admitted the fact to the expectant clerk 
in the tank, who instantly snuffed his candle out, and put 
on his hat. 

"You'll want all day tomorrow, I suppose!" said 
Scrooge, 

' ' If quite convenient, sir. ' ' 

"It's not convenient," said Scrooge, "and it's not 
fair. If I was to stop half-a-crown 6 for it, you'd think 
yourself ill used, I '11 be bound ? ' ' 

The clerk smiled faintly. 

"And yet," said Scrooge, "you don't think me ill 
used when I pay a day's wages for no work." 

The clerk observed that it was only once a year. 



24 LOYOLA ENGLISH CLASSICS 

"A poor excuse for picking a man's pocket every 
twenty-fifth of December!" 1 said Scrooge, buttoning his 
great-coat to the chin. "But I suppose you must have 
the whole day. Be here all the earlier next morning." 2 

The clerk promised that he would; and Scrooge 
walked out with a growl. The office was closed in a 
twinkling, and the clerk, with the long ends of his w'hite 
comforter dangling below his waist (for he boasted no 
great-coat), went down a slide on Cornhill, 3 at the end 
of a lane of boys, twenty times, in honor of its being 
Christmas Eve. and then ran home to Camden Town, 4 as 
ha I'd as he could pelt, to play at blindman's buff. 5 

Scrooge took his melancholy dinner in his usual 
melancholy tavern; and having read all the newspapers, 
and beguiled the rest of the evening with his banker's 
book, went home to bed. He lived in chambers which 
had once belonged to his deceased partner. 6 They were 
a gloomy suite of rooms, in a lowering pile of building 
up a yard, where it had so little business to be. that one 
could scarcely help fancying it must have run there 
when it was a young house, playing at hide-and-seek with 
other houses, and have forgotten the way out again. It 
was old enough now. and dreary enough, for nobody 
lived in it but Scrooge, the other rooms being all let out 
as offices. The yard was so dark that even Scrooge, who 
knew its every stone, was fain to grope with his hands. 
The fog and frost so hung about the black old gateway 
of the house, that it seemed as if the Genius of the 
Weather sat in mournful meditation on the threshold. 7 

Now it is a fact that there was nothing at all 
particular about the knocker on the door, except that it 
was very large. It is also a fact that Scrooge had seen 
it, night and morning, during his whole residence in that 
place; also that Scrooge had as little of what is called 
fancy about him as any man in the City of London, even 
including — which is a bold word — the corporation, alder- 
men, and livery. Let it also be borne in mind that 
Scrooge had not bestowed one thought on Marley. since 



A CHRISTMAS CAROL 25 

his last mention of his seven-year-dead partner that 
afternoon. And then let any man explain to me, if he 
can, how it happened that Scrooge, having his key in 
the lock of the door, saw in the knocker, without its 
undergoing any intermediate process of change, — not a 
knocker, but Marley's face. 

Marley's face. 1 It was not in impenetrable shadows, 
as the other objects in the yard were, but had a dismal 
light about it, like a bad lobster in a dark cellar. It was 
not angry or ferocious, but looked at Scrooge as Marley 
used to look: with ghostly spectacles turned up on its 
ghostly forehead. The hair was curiously stirred, as if 
by breath or hot air; and though the eyes were wide 
open, they were perfectly motionless. That, and its livid 
color, made it horrible; but its horror seemed to be in 
spite of the face, and beyond its control, rather than a 
part of its own expression. 

As Scrooge looked fixedly at this phenomenon it was 
a knocker again. 

To say that he was not startled, or that his blood was 
not conscious of a terrible sensation to which it had been 
a stranger from infancy, would be untrue. But he put 
his hand upon the key he had relinquished, turned it 
sturdily, walked in, and lighted his candle. 

He did pause, with a moment's irresolution, before 
he shut the door; and he did look cautiously behind it 
first, as if he half expected to be terrified with the sight 
of Marley's pigtail sticking out into the hall. But there 
was nothing on the back of the door, except the screws 
and nuts that held the knocker on, so he said, "Pooh, 
pooh ! ' ' and closed it with a bang. 

The sound resounded through the house like thunder. 
Every room above, and every cask in the wine merchant 's 
cellars below, appeared to have a separate peal of echoes 
of its own. Scrooge was not a man to be frightened by 
echoes. He fastened the door, and walked across the 
hall, and up the stairs, slowly, too, trimming his candle 
as he went. 



26 LOYOLA ENGLISH CLASSICS 

You may talk vaguely about driving a coach-and-six 
up a good old flight of stairs, or through a bad young 
Act of Parliament ; but I mean to say you might have 
got a hearse 1 up that staircase, and taken it broadwise, 
with the splinter-bar 2 towards the wall, and the door 
towards the balustrades, and done it easy. There was 
plenty of width for that, and room to spare; which is 
perhaps the reason why Scrooge thought he saw a 
locomotive hearse going on before him in the gloom. 
Half a dozen gas-lamps out of the street wouldn't have 
lighted the entry too well, so you may suppose that it 
was pretty dark with Scrooge's dip. 3 

Up Scrooge went, not caring a button for that. 
Darkness is cheap, and Scrooge liked it. But before he 
shut his heavy door, he walked through his rooms to 
see that all was right. He had just enough recollection 
of the face to desire to do that. 

Sitting-room, bedroom, lumber-room. All as they 
should be. Nobody under the table, nobody under the 
sofa ; a small fire in the grate ; spoon and basin ready ; 
and the little saucepan of gruel (Scrooge had a cold in 
his head) upon the hob. 4 Nobody under the bed; nobody 
in the closet; nobody in his dressing-gown, which was 
hanging up in a suspicious attitude against the wall. 
Lumber-room as usual. Old fire-guard, old shoes, two 
fish-baskets, washing-stand on three legs, and a poker. 5 

Quite satisfied, he closed his door, and locked himself 
in; double-locked himself in, which was not his custom. 
Thus secured against surprise, he took off his cravat ; put 
on his dressing-gown and slippers, and his nightcap ; and 
sat down before the fire to take his gruel. 

It was a very low fire indeed; nothing on such a 
bitter night. He was obliged to sit close to it, and brood 
over it, before he could extract the least sensation of 
warmth from such a handful of fuel. The fireplace was 
an old one, built by some Dutch merchant long ago, and 
paved all round with quaint Dutch tiles, designed to 
illustrate the Scriptures. There were Cains and Abels, 



A CHRISTMAS CAROL 27 

Pharaoh's daughters, Queens of Sheba, angelic messen- 
gers descending through the air on clouds like feather- 
beds, Abrahams,- Belshazzars, Apostles putting off to 
sea in butter-boats, 1 hundreds of figures to attract his 
thoughts : and yet that face of Marley, seven years dead, 
came like the ancient Prophet's rod, 2 and swallowed up 
the whole. If each smooth tile had been a blank at first, 
with power to shape some picture on its surface from the 
disjointed fragments of his thoughts, there would have 
been a copy of old Marley 's head on every one. 

"Humbug!" said Scrooge; and walked across the 
room. 

After several turns, he sat down again. As he threw 
his head back in the chair, his glance happened to rest 
upon a bell, a disused bell, that hung in the room, and 
communicated, for some purpose now forgotten, with a 
chamber in the highest story of the building. It was 
with great astonishment, and with a strange, inexplicable 
dread, that, as he looked, he saw this bell begin to swing. 
Tt swung so softly in the outset that it scarcely made a 
sound ; but soon it rang out loudly, and so did every bell 
in the house. 

This might have lasted half a minute, or a minute, 
but it seemed an hour. The bells ceased, as- they had 
begun, together. They were succeeded by a clanking 
noise, deep down below ; as if some person were dragging 
a heavy chain over the casks in the wine merchant's 
cellar. Scrooge then remembered to have heard that 
ghosts in haunted houses were described as dragging 
chains. 3 

The cellar door flew open with a booming sound, and 
then he heard the noise, much louder, on the floors 
below; then coming up the sairs; then coming straight 
towards his door. 

" It 's humbug still ! ' ' said Scrooge. ' ' I won 't believe 
it." 

His color changed, though, when, without a pause, it 
came on through the heavy door, and passed into the 



28 LOYOLA ENGLISH CLASSICS 

room before his eyes. Upon its coming in, the dying 
name leaped up, as though it cried. "I know him! 
Marley 's Ghost!' 7 and fell again. 

The same face, the very same. Marley, in his pigtail, 
usual waistcoat, tights and boots: the tassels on the latter 
bristling, like his pigtail, and his coat-skirts, and the hair 
upon his head. The chain he drew was clasped about 
his middle. It was long, and wound about him like a 
tail; and it was made (for Scrooge observed it closely) 
of cash-boxes, keys, padlocks, ledgers, deeds, and heavy 
purses wrought in steel. His body was transparent; so 
that Scrooge, observing him, and looking through his 
waistcoat, could see the two buttons on his coat behind. 

Though he looked the phantom through and through, 
and saw it standing before him ; though he felt the 
chilling influence of its death-cold eyes, and marked the 
very texture of the folded kerchief bound about its head 
and chin, which wrapper he had not observed before, he 
was still incredulous, and fought against his senses. 

' * How now ! ' ' said Scrooge, caustic and cold as ever. 
"What do you want with me?" 

"Much!" — Marley's voice, no doubt about it. 

''Who are you?" 

' ' Ask me who I was. 

"Who were you. then?" said Scrooge, .raising his 
voice. "You're particular, for a shade.'* He was going 
to, say. "to a shade." but substituted this, as more 
appropriate. 

"In life I was your partner. Jacob Marley." 

"Can you — can you sit down?" asked Scrooge, look- 
ing doubtfully at him. 1 

"I can." 

"Do it, then." 

Scrooge asked the question, because he didn't know 
whether a ghost so transparent might find himself in a 
condition to take a chair; and felt that in the event of 
its being impossible, it might involve the necessity of an 
embarrassing explanation. But the Ghost sat down on 



A CHRISTMAS CAROL 29 

the opposite side of the fireplace, as if he were quite used 
to it. 1 

"You don't believe in me," observed the Ghost. 

"I don't," said Scrooge. 

"What evidence would you have of my reality beyond 
that of your own senses ? ' ' 

''I don't know," said Scrooge. 

' ' Why do you doubt your senses ? ' ' 

"Because," said Scrooge, "a little thing affects them. 
A slight disorder of the stomach makes them cheats. 
You may be an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, 
a crumb of cheese, a fragment of an underdone potato. 2 . 
There 's more of gravy than of grave about you, whatever 
you are!" 

Scrooge was not much in the habit of cracking jokes, 
nor did he feel, in his heart, by any means waggish then. 
The truth is, that he tried to be smart, as a means of 
distracting his own attention, and keeping down his 
terror, for the spectre's voice disturbed the very marrow 
in his bones. 

To sit staring at those fixed glazed eyes in silence, 
for a moment, would play, Scrooge felt, the very deuce 
with him. There was something very awful, too, in the 
spectre's being provided with an infernal atmosphere 
of his own. Scrooge could not feel it himself, but this 
was clearly the case ; for though the Ghost sat perfectly 
motionless, his hair, and skirts, and tassels were still 
agitated as by the hot vapor from an oven. 3 

- ' You see this toothpick ? ' ' said Scrooge, returning 
quickly to the charge, for the reason just assigned ; and 
wishing, though it were only for a second, to divert the 
vision's stony gaze from himself. 

"I do," replied the Ghost. 

" You are not looking at it," said Scrooge. 

"But I see.it." said the Ghost, "notwithstanding." 

"Well!" returned Scrooge, "I have but to swallow 
this, and be for the rest of my days persecuted by a 
legion of goblins, all my own creation. Humbug, I tell 
you; humbug!" 



30 LOYOLA ENGLISH CLASSICS 

At this the spirit raised a frightful cry, and shook 
his chain with such a dismal and appalling noise, that 
Scrooge held on tight to his chair, to save himself from 
falling in a swoon. But how much greater was his 
horror when, the phantom taking off the bandage round 
his head, as if it were too warm to wear indoors, his 
lower jaw dropped down upon his breast! 

Scrooge fell upon his knees, and clasped his hands 
before his face. 

"Mercy!/' he said. "Dreadful apparition, why do 
you trouble me?" 

' ' Man of the worldly mind ! ' ' replied the Ghost, ' ' do 
you believe in me or not ? ' ' 

"I do," said Scrooge. U I must. But why do spirits 
walk the earth, and why do they come to me?" 

"It is required of every man," the Ghost returned, 
"that the spirit w r ithin him should walk abroad among 
his fellowmen, and travel far and wide ; and if that spirit 
goes not forth in life, it is condemned to do so after 
death. It is doomed to wander through the world, — oh, 
Avoe is me !— and witness what it cannot share, but might 
have shared on earth, and turned to happiness ! ' ' 

Again the spectre raised a cry, and shook his chain 
and wrung his shadowy hands. 

"You are fettered," said Scrooge, trembling. "Tell 
me why ? " 

"I wear the chain I forged in life," 1 replied the 
Ghost. "I made it link by link, and yard by yard; I 
girded it on of my own free will, and of my own free 
will I wore it. Is its pattern strange to youV 

Scrooge trembled more and more. 

"Or would you know," pursued the Ghost, "the 
weight and length of the strong coil you bear yourself? 
It was full as heavy and as long as this, seven Christmas 
Eves ago. You have labored on it, since. It is a pon- 
derous chain ! ' ' 

Scrooge glanced about him on the floor, in the 
expectation of finding himself surrounded by some fifty 
or sixty fathoms of iron cable ; but he could see nothing. 



A CHRISTMAS CAROL 31 

' '' Jacob ! " he said imploringly. ' ' Old Jacob Marley, 
tell me more ! Speak comfort to me, Jacob ! ' ' 

' ' I have none to give, ' ' the Ghost replied. ' ' It comes 
from other regions, Ebenezer Scrooge, and is conveyed 
by other ministers, to other kinds of men. Nor can I tell 
you what I would. A very little more is all permitted 
to me. I cannot rest, I cannot stay, I cannot linger any- 
where. My spirit never walked beyond our counting- 
house, — mark me ! — in life my spirit never roved beyond 
the narrow limits of our money-changing hole; and 
weary journeys lie before me!" 

It was a habit with Scrooge, whenever he became 
thoughtful, to put his hands in his breeches-pockets. 
Pondering on what the Ghost had said, he did so now, 
but without lifting up his eyes, or getting off his knees. 

"You must have been very slow about it, Jacob," 
Scrooge observed in a business-like manner, though with 
humility and deference. 

"Slow!" the Ghost repeated. 

"Seven years dead," mused Scrooge. "And trav- 
elling all the time ? ' ' 

"The whole time," said the Ghost. "No rest, 310 
peace. Incessant torture of remorse." 1 

"You travel fast?" said Scrooge. 

"On the wings of the wind," replied the Ghost. 

' ' You might have got over a great quantity of ground 
in seven years," said Scrooge. 

The Ghost, on hearing this, set up another cry, and 
clanked his chain so hideously in the dead silence of the 
night, that the Ward would have been justified in in- 
dicting it for a nuisance. 

"Oh! captive, bound and double-ironed," cried the 
phantom, "not to know that ages of incessant labor, 
by immortal creatures, for this earth, must pass into 
eternity before the good of which it is susceptible is all 
developed ! Not to know that any Christian spirit work- 
ing kindly in its little sphere, whatever it may be, will 
find its mortal life too short for its vast means of use- 



32 LOYOLA ENGLISH CLASSICS 

fulness ! Not to know that no space of regret can make 
amends for one life 's opportunities misused ! Yet such 
was I ! Oh ! such was I ! ' n 

"But you were always a good man of business, 
Jacob," faltered Scrooge, who now began to apply this 
to himself. 

''Business!" cried the Ghost, wringing his hands 
again. "Mankind was my business. The common wel- 
fare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and 
benevolence were, all, my business. The dealings of my 
trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive 
ocean of my business ! ' ' 2 

He held up his chain at arm's length, as if that were 
the cause of all his unavailing grief, and flung it heavily 
upon the ground again. 

"At this time of the rolling year," the spectre said. 
"I suffer most. Why did I walk through crowds of 
fellow-beings with my eyes turned down, and never raise 
them to that blessed Star which led the Wise Men to a 
poor abode? 3 Were there no poor homes to which its 
light would have conducted me?" 

Scrooge was very much dismayed to hear the spectre 
going on at this rate, and began to quake exceedingly. 

"Hear me!" cried the Ghost. "My time is nearly 
gone. ' ' 

"I will," said Scrooge. "But don't be hard upon 
me ! Don 't be flowery, Jacob ! Pray ! ' ' 

"How is it that I appear before you in a shape that 
you can see, I may not tell. I have sat invisible beside 
you many and many a day. 

It was not an agreeable idea. Scrooge shivered, and 
wiped the perspiration from his brow. 4 

' ' That is no light part of my penance, ' ' pursued the 
Ghost. "lam here tonight to warn you, that you have 
yet a chance and hope of escaping my fate. A chance 
and hope of my procuring, Ebenezer. ' ' 

"You were always a good friend to me," said 
Scrooge. "Thankee!" 



A CHRISTMAS CAROL 33 

"You will be haunted," resumed the Ghost, "by 
Three Spirits." 1 

Scrooge's countenance fell almost as low as the 
Ghost's had done. 

"Is that the chance and hope you mentioned, 
Jacob?" he demanded, in a faltering voice. 

"It is." 

"I — I think I'd rather not," said Scrooge. 

' ' Without their visits, ' ' said the Ghost, ' ' you cannot 
hope to shun the path I tread. Expect the first tomor- 
row, when the bell tolls One. ' ' 

''Couldn't I take 'em all at once, and have it over. 
Jacob ? ' ' hinted Scrooge. 

"Expect the second on the next night at the same 
hour. The third, upon the next night when the last 
stroke of Twelve has ceased to vibrate. Look to see me 
no more ; and look that, for your own sake, you remem- 
ber what has passed between us ! " 

When he said these words, the spectre took his 
wrapper from the table, and bound it round his head, as 
before. Scrooge knew this, by the smart sound his teeth 
made when the jaws were brought together by the 
bandage. He ventured to raise his eyes again, and found 
his supernatural visitor confronting him in an erect 
attitude, with his chain wound over and about its arm. 

The apparition walked backward from him; and at 
every step he took, the window raised itself a little, so 
that when the spectre reached it, it was wide open. He 
beckoned Scrooge to approach, which he did. When 
they were within two paces of each other, Marley's 
Ghost held up his hand, warning him to come no nearer. 
Scrooge stopped. 

Not so much in obedience, as in surprise and fear ; 
for on the raising of the hand he became sensible of 
confused noises in the air; incoherent sounds of lamen- 
tation and regret ; wailings inexpressibly sorrowful and 
self -accusatory. 2 The spectre, after listening for a 
moment, joined in the mournful dirge; and floated out 
upon the bleak, dark night. 



34 LOYOLA ENGLISH CLASSICS 

Scrooge followed to the window, desperate in his 
curiosity. He looked out. 

The air was filled with phantoms, wandering hither 
and thither in restless haste, and moaning as they went. 
Every one of them wore chains like Marley's Ghost; 
some few (they might be guilty governments) were 
linked together; none were free. Many had been per- 
sonally known to Scrooge in their lives. He had been 
quite familiar with one old ghost, in a white waistcoat, 
with a monstrous iron safe attached to his ankle, who 
cried piteously at being unable to assist a wretched 
woman with an infant, whom he saw below, upon a door- 
step. The misery with them all was, clearly, that they 
sought to interfere, for good, in human matters, and had 
lost the power forever. 1 

Whether these creatures faded into mist, or mist 
enshrouded them, he could not tell. But they and their 
spirit voices faded together ; and the night became as it 
had been when he walked home. 

Scrooge closed the window, and examined the door 
by which the Ghost had entered. It was double-locked, 
as he had locked it with his own hands, and the bolts 
were undisturbed. He tried to say "Humbug!'' but 
stopped at the first syllable. And being, from the 
emotion he had undergone, or the fatigues of the day, 
or his glimpse of the Invisible World, or the dull 
conversation of the Ghost, or the lateness of the hour, 2 
much in need of repose, went straight to bed, without 
undressing, and fell asleep on the instant. 



STAVE TWO 

THE FIRST OF THE THREE SPIRITS 

When Scrooge awoke it was so dark, that, looking 
out of bed, he could scarcely distinguish the transparent 
window from the opaque walls of his chamber. He was 
endeavoring to pierce the darkness with his ferret eyes, 



A CHRISTMAS CAROL 35 

when the chimes of a neighboring church struck the four 
quarters. So he listened for the hour. 

To his great astonishment the heavy bell went on 
from six to seven, and from seven to eight, and regularly 
up to twelve ; then stopped. Twelve ! It was past two 
when he went to bed. The clock was wrong. An icicle 
must have got into the works. Twelve ! 

He touched the spring of his repeater, 1 to correct this 
most preposterous clock. Its rapid little pulse beat 
twelve ; and stopped. 

"Why, it isn't possible," said Scrooge, "that I can 
have slept through a whole day and far into another 
night. It isn't possible that anything has happened to 
the sun ,and this is twelve at noon ! ' ' 

The idea being an alarming one, he scrambled out of 
bed, and groped 2 his way to the window. He was obliged 
to rub the frost off with the sleeve of his dressing-gown 
before he could see anything; and could see very little 
then. All he could make out was, that it was still very 
foggy and extremely cold, and, that there was no noise 3 
of people running to and fro, and making a great stir, as 
there unquestionably would have been if night had 
beaten off bright day, and taken possession of the world. 

Scrooge went to bed again, and thought, and thought, 
and thought it over and over, and could make nothing of 
it. The more he thought, the more perplexed he was; 
and the more he endeavored not to think, the more he 
thought. 

Marley's Ghost bothered him exceedingly. Every 
time he resolved within himself, after mature inquiry, 
that it was all a dream, his mind flew back again, like a 
strong spring released, 4 to its first position, and pre- 
sented the same problem to be worked all through. "Was 
it a dream or not ? ' ' 

Scrooge lay in this state until the chime had gone 
three quarters more, when he remembered, on a sudden, 
that the Ghost had warned him of a visitation when the 
bell tolled one. He resolved to lie awake until the hour 



36 LOYOLA ENGLISH CLASSICS 

was passed ; and, considering that he could no more go 
to sleep than go to heaven, this was, perhaps, the wisest 
resolution in his power. 

The quarter was so long, that he was more than once 
convinced he must have sunk into a doze unconsciously, 
and missed the clock. At length it broke upon his 
listening ear. 

' ' Ding, dong ! ' ' 

"A quarter past," said Scrooge, counting. 

"Ding, dong!" 

' ' Half past, ' ' said Scrooge. 

"Ding, dong!" 

' ' A quarter to it, ' ' said Scrooge. 

"Ding, dong!" 

"The hour itself," said Scrooge triumphantly, "and 
nothing else ! ' ' 

He spoke before the hour bell sounded, which it now 
did with a deep, dull, hollow, melancholy One. 1 Light 
flashed up in the room upon the instant, and the curtains 
of his bed were drawn. 

The curtains of his bed were drawn aside, I tell you, 2 
by a hand. Not the curtains at his feet, nor the curtains 
at his back, but those to which his face was addressed. 
The curtains of his bed were drawn aside ; and Scrooge, 
starting up into a half -recumbent attitude, found himself 
face to face with the unearthly visitor who drew them : 
as close to it as I am now to you, and I am standing in 
the spirit at your elbow. 

It was a strange figure, — like a child ; 3 yet not so like 
a child as like an old man, viewed through some super- 
natural medium, which gave him the appearance of 
having receded from the view, and being diminished to 
a child's proportions. Its hair, which hung about its 
neck and down its back, was white, as if with age ; and 
yet the face had not a wrinkle in it, and the tenderest 
bloom was on the skin. The arms were very long and 
muscular; the hands the same, as if its hold were of 
uncommon strength. Its legs and feet, most delicately 



A CHRISTMAS CAROL 37 

formed, were, like those upper members, bare. It wore 
a tunic of the purest white ; and round its waist was 
bound a lustrous belt, 1 the sheen of which was beautiful. 
It held a branch o'f fresh, green holly in its hand; and, 
in singular contradiction of that wintry emblem, had its 
dress trimmed with summer flowers. But the strangest 
thing about it was, that from the crown of its head there 
sprung a bright, clear jet of light, by which all this was 
visible; and which was doubtless the occasion of its 
using, in its duller moments, a great extinguisher for a 
cap, which it now held under its arm. 

2 Even this, though, when Scrooge looked at it with 
increasing steadiness, was not its strangest quality. For 
as its belt sparkled and glittered now in one part and 
now in another, and what was light one instant at an- 
other time was dark, so the figure itself fluctuated in its 
distinctness : being now a thing with one arm, iioav with 
one leg, now with twenty legs, now a pair of legs without 
a head, now a head without a body; of which dissolving 
parts no outline would be visible in the dense gloom 
wherein they melted away. And, in the very wonder of 
this, it would be itself again, distinct and clear as ever. 

''Are you the Spirit, sir, whose coming was foretold 
to me ? ' ' asked Scrooge. 

"I am!" 

The voice was soft and gentle. Singularly low, as if 
instead of being so close beside him, it were at a dis- 
tance. 3 

" ' Who, and what are you ? ' ' Scrooge demanded. 

' ' I am the Ghost of Christmas Past. ' ' 

"Long Past?" inquired Scrooge, observant of its 
dwarfish stature. 

"No. Your past." 

Perhaps Scrooge could not have told anybody why, 
if anybody could have asked him, but he had a special 
desire to see the Spirit in his cap, and begged him to be 
covered. 

"What!" exclaimed the Ghost, "would you so soon 



38 LOYOLA ENGLISH CLASSICS 

put out, with worldly hands, the light I give? Is it not 
enough that you are one of those whose passions made 
this cap, and force me through whole trains of years to 
wear it low upon my brow?" 

Scrooge reverently disclaimed all intention to offend 
or any knowledge of having wilfully "bonneted" 1 the 
Spirit at any period of his life. He then made bold to 
inquire what business brought him there. 

' ' Your welfare ! ' ' said the Ghost. 

Scrooge expressed himself much obliged, but could 
not help thinking that a night of unbroken rest would 
have been more conducive to that end. The Spirit must 
have heard him thinking, for it said immediately : — 

' ' Your reclamation, then. Take heed ! ' ' 

It put out its strong hand as it spoke, and clasped 
him gently by the arm. 

' ' Rise, and walk with me ! ' ' 

It would have been in vain for Scrooge to plead that 
the weather and the hour were not adapted to pedestrian 
purposes ; that the bed was warm, and the thermometer 
a long way below freezing; that he was clad but lightly 
in his slippers, dressing-gown, and nightcap ; and that he 
had a cold upon him at that time. The grasp, -though 
gentle as a woman's hand, was not to be resisted. He 
rose; but finding that the Spirit made towards the 
window, clasped its robe in supplication. 

"I am a mortal," Scrooge remonstrated, "and liable 
to fall." 

"Bear but a touch of my hand there," said the Spirit, 
laying it upon his heart, "and you shall be upheld in 
more than this ! ' ' 

As the words were spoken, they passed through the 
wall, and stood upon an open country road, with fields 
on either hand. The city had entirely vanished. Not a 
vestige of it was to be seen. The darkness and the mist 
had vanished with it, for it was a clear, cold, winter day, 
with snow upon the ground. 

"Good Heaven!" said Scrooge, clasping his hands 



A CHRISTMAS CAROL 39 

together, as he looked about him. "I was bred in this 
place. I was a boy here ! ' n 

The Spirit gazed upon him mildly. Its gentle touch, 
though it had been light and instantaneous, appeared 
still present to the old man's sense of feeling. He was 
conscious of a thousand odors 2 floating in the air, each 
one connected with a thousand thoughts, and hopes, and 
joys, and cares long, long forgotten ! 

1 ' Your lip is trembling, ' ' said the Ghost. ' ' And what 
is that upon your cheek ? ' ' 

Scrooge muttered, with an unusual catching in his 
voice, that it was a pimple, and begged the Ghost to lead 
him where he would. 

' ' You recollect the way ? ' ' inquired the Spirit. 

4 ' Remember it ! " cried Scrooge with fervor, ' ' I could 
walk it blindfold." 

''Strange to have forgotten it for so many years!" 
observed the Ghost, ' k Let us go on. ' ' 

They walked along the road, Scrooge recognizing 
every gate, and post, and tree ; until a little market-town 
appeared in the distance, with its bridge, its church, and 
winding river. 1 Some shaggy ponies now were seen 
trotting towards them with boys upon their backs, who 
called to other boys in country gigs and carts, driven by 
farmers. All these boys were in great spirits, and 
shouted to each other, until the broad fields were so full 
of merry music that the crisp air laughed to hear it. 

' k These are but shadows of the things that have 
been," said the Ghost. "They have no consciousness 
of us." 

The jocund travellers came on; and as they came, 
Scrooge knew and named them every one. "Why was he 
rejoiced beyond all bounds to see them? Why did his 
cold eye glisten, and his heart leap up as they went past ? 
Why was he filled with gladness when he heard them 
give each other Merry Christmas, as they parted at 
cross-roads and by-ways, for their several homes °? What 



40 LOYOLA ENGLISH CLASSICS 

was merry Christmas to Scrooge? Out upon merry 
Christmas! What good had it ever done to him? 1 

"The sehool is not quite deserted," said the Ghost. 
"A solitary child, neglected by his friends, is left there 
still." 

Scrooge said he knew it. And he sobbed. 

They left the high-road, by a well-remembered lane, 
and soon approached a mansion of dull red brick, with 
a little weathercock-surmounted cupola on the roof, and 
a bell ringing in it. It was a large house, but one of 
broken fortunes ; for the spacious offices were little used, 
their walls were damp and mossy, their windows broken, 
and their gates decayed. Fowls clucked and strutted in 
the stables, and the coach-houses and sheds were over- 
run with grass. Nor was it more retentive of its ancient 
state within ; for entering the dreary hall, and glancing 
through the open doors of many rooms, they found them 
poorly furnished, cold and vast. There was an earthly 
savor in the air, a chilly bareness in the place, which 
associated itself somehow with too much getting up by 
candlelight, and not too much to eat. 

They went, the Ghost and Scrooge, across the hall, to 
a door at the back of the house. It opened before them, 
and disclosed a long, bare, melancholy room, made barer 
still by lines of plain deal forms and desks. At one of 
these a lonely boy was reading near a feeble fire; and 
Scrooge sat down upon a form, and wept to see his poor 
forgotten self as he had used to be. 

Not a latent echo in the house, not a squeak and 
scuffle from the mice behind the panelling, not a drip 
from the half-thawed water-spout in the dull yard 
behind, not a sigh among the leafless boughs of one 
despondent poplar, not the idle swinging of an empty 
storehouse door, no, not a clicking in the fire, but fell 
upon the heart of Scrooge with softening influence, and 
gave a freer passage to his tears. 

The Spirit touched him on the arm, and pointed to 
his younger self, intent upon his reading. Suddenly a 



A CHRISTMAS CAROL 41 

man, in foreign garments, wonderfully real and distinct 
to look at, stood outside the window, with an axe stuck 
in his belt, and leading by the bridle an ass laden with 
wood. 

"Why, it's Ali Baba!" 1 Scrooge exclaimed, in ec- 
stasy. "It ; s dear old honest Ali Baba! Yes, yes, J 
know! One Christmas-time when yonder solitary child 
was left here all alone, he did come, for the first time, 
just like that. Poor boy! And Valentine," said 
Scrooge, "and his wild brother Orson, 2 there they go! 
And what's his name, 3 who was put down in his drawers, 
asleep at the Gate of Damascus ; don 't you see him ? And 
the Sultan's Groom turned upside down by the Genii; 
there he is upon his head ! Serve him right ! I'm glad of 
it. What business had he to be married to the Prin- 
cess?" 

To hear Scrooge expending all the earnestness of his 
nature on such subjects, in a most extraordinary voice 
between laughing and crying, and to see his heightened 
and excited face, would have been a surprise to his 
business friends in the City, indeed. 

"There's the Parrot !" cried Scrooge. "Green body 
and yellow tail, with a thing like lettuce growing out of 
the top of his head ; there he is ! Poor Robin Crusoe, he 
called him, when he came home again, after sailing round 
the island. 'Poor Robin Crusoe, where have you been, 
Robin Crusoe ? ' The man thought he was dreaming, but 
he wasn't. It was the Parrot, you know. There goes 
Friday, running for his life to the little creek ! Halloa ! 
Hoop! Halloo!" 

Then, with a rapidity of transition very foreign to his 
usual character, he said, in pity for his former self, 
"Poor boy!" and cried again. 4 

"I wish," Scrooge muttered, putting his hand in his 
pocket, and looking about him, after drying his eyes 
with his cuff: "but it's too late now." 

"What is the matter?" asked the Spirit. 



42 LOYOLA ENGLISH CLASSICS 

' ' Nothing, ' ' said Scrooge, ' ' nothing. There was a boy 
singing a Christmas Carol at my door last night. I 
should like to have given him something: that's all." 

The Ghost smiled thoughtfully, and waved its hand, 
saying, as it did so. "Let us see another Christmas!" 

Scrooge's former self grew larger at the words, and 
the room became a little darker and more dirty. The 
panels shrunk, the windows cracked; fragments of 
plaster fell out of the ceiling, and the naked laths were 
shown instead ; but how all this was brought about, 
Scrooge, knew no more than you do. He only knew 
that it was quite correct ; that everything had happened 
so; that there he was, alone again, when all the other 
boys had gone home for the jolly holidays. 

He was not reading now, but walking up and down 
despairingly. Scrooge looked at the Ghost, and, with a 
mournful shaking of his head, glanced anxiously towards 
the door. 

It opened, and a little girl, much younger than the 
boy came darting in, and, putting her arms about his 
neck, and often kissing him, addressed his as her "dear, 
dear brother." 

' ' I have come to bring you home, dear brother ! ' ' said 
the child, clapping her tiny hands, and bending down 
to laugh. "To bring you home, home, home!" 

"Home, little Fan?" returned the boy. 

"Yes!" said the child, brimful of glee. "Home, for 
good and all. Home, for ever and ever. Father is so 
much kinder than he used to be, that home's like heaven I 1 
He spoke so gently to me one dear night when I was 
going to bed that I was not afraid to ask him once more 
if you might come home ; and he said Yes, yon should ; 
and sent me in a coach to bring you. And you're to be 
a man ! " said the child, opening her eyes, "and are never 
to come back here; but first, we're to be together all the 
Christmas long, and have the merriest time in all the 
world. ' ' 



A CHRISTMAS CAROL 43 

"You are quite a woman, little Fan!" 1 exclaimed 
the boy. 

She clapped her hands and laughed, and tried to 
touch his head ; but, being too little, laughed again, and 
stood on tiptoe to embrace him. Then she began to drag 
him, in her childish eagerness, towards the door; and 
he, nothing loath to go, accompanied her. 

A terrible voice in the hall cried, "Bring down Mas- 
ter Scrooge's box, there!" and in the hall appeared the 
schoolmaster himself, who glared on Master Scrooge 
with a ferocious condescension, and threw him into a 
dreadful state of mind by shaking hands with him. He 
then conveyed him and his sister into the veriest old well 
of a shivering best parlor that ever was seen, where the 
maps upon the wall, and the celestial and terrestrial 
globes in the windows, were waxy with cold. Here he 
produced a decanter of curiously light wine, and a block 
of curiously heavy cake, and administered instalments of 
those dainties to the young people; at the same time 
sending out a meagre servant to .offer a glass of "some- 
thing to the postboy, who answered that he thanked 
the gentleman, but if it was the same tap as he had tasted 
before, he had rather not. Master Scrooge's trunk being 
by this time tied on to the top of the chaise, the children 
bade the schoolmaster good-by right willingly; and, 
getting into it, drove gayly down the garden sweep, the 
quick wheels dashing the hoar-frost and snow from off 
the dark leaves of the evergreens like spray. 

"Always a delicate creature, whom a breath might 
have withered," said the Ghost. "But she had a large 
hea,rt!" 

" So she had, " cried Scrooge, "You're right, I will 
not gainsay it, Spirit, God forbid!" 

1 ' She died a woman, ' ' said the Ghost, ' ' and had, as I 
think, children. ' ' 

' ' One child, ' ' Scrooge returned. 

' ' True, ' ' said the Ghost. ' ' Your nephew ! ' ' 2 



44 LOYOLA ENGLISH CLASSICS 

Scrooge seemed uneasy in his mind; and answered 
briefly, "Yes." 

Although they had but that moment left the school 
behind them, they were now in the busy thoroughfare of 
a city, where shadowy passengers passed and repassed; 
where shadowy carts and coaches battled for the way, 
and all the strife and tumult of a real city were. It was 
evening, and the streets were lighted up. 

The Ghost stopped at a certain warehouse door, and 
asked Scrooge if he knew it. 

"Know it!" said Scrooge. "Was I apprenticed 
here!'' 

They went in. At sight of an old gentleman in a 
Welsh wig. sitting behind such a high desk that if he had 
been two inches taller he must have knocked his head 
against the ceiling. Scrooge cried in great excitement : — 

"Why, it's old Fezziwig! 1 Bless his heart; it's Fez- 
ziwig alive again ! ' ' 

Ole Fezziwig laid down his pen, and looked up at 
the clock, which pointed to the hour of seven. He 
rubbed his hands ; adjusted his capacious waistcoat ; 
laughed all over himself, from his shoes to his organ of 
benevolence ; and called out, in a comfortable, oily, rich, 
fat. jovial voice: — 2 

"Yoho, there! Ebenezer ! Dick!" 

Scrooge's former self, now grown a 3'oung man. 
came briskly in. accompanied by his fellow- 'prentice. 

' k Dick Wilkins, to be sure ! ' ' said Scrooge to the 
({host." Bless me, yes. There he is. He was very much 
attached to me, was Dick. Poor Dick! Dear, dear!" 

' ' Y~o ho, my boys ! ' ' said Fezziwig. ' k No more work 
tonight. Christmas Eve, Dick. Christmas, Ebenezer! 
Let's have the shutters up," cried old Fezziwig, with a 
sharp clap of his hands, 'before a man can say Jack 
Kobinson ! ' ' 

You wouldn't believe how those two fellows went at 
it ! They charged into the street witlrthe shutters — one, 
two. three — had 'em up in their places — four, five, six 



A CHRISTMAS CAROL 45 

— barred 'em and pinned 'em — seven, eight, nine — and 
came back before you could have got to twelve, panting 
like race-horses. 

"Hilli-ho!" cried old Fezziwig, skipping down from 
the high desk with wonderful agility. 1 "Clear away, 
my lads, and let's have lots of room here! Hilli-ho, 
Dick! Chirrup, Ebenezer!" 

Clear away! There was nothing they wouldn't have 
cleared away, or couldn't have cleared away, with old 
Fezziwig looking on. It was done in a minute. Every 
moveable was packed off, as if it were dismissed from 
public life forevermore; the floor was swept and 
watered, the lamps were trimmed, fuel was heaped upon 
the fire ; and the warehouse was as snug, and warm, and 
dry, and bright a ballroom as you would desire to see 
upon a winter's night. 

In came a fiddler with a music book, and went up 
to the lofty desk, and made, an orchestra of it, and tuned 
like fifty stomach-aches.- In came Mrs. Fezziwig, one 
vast, substantial smile. :! In came the three Miss Fezzi- 
wigs, beaming and lovable. In came the six 4 young 
followers whose hearts they broke. In came all the 
young men and women employed in the business. In 
came the housemaid, with her cousin, the baker. In 
came the cook, with her brother's particular friend, the 
milkman. In came the boy from over the way, who was 
suspected of not having board enough from his master; 
trying to hide himself behind the girl from next door 
but one, who was proved to have had her ears pulled by 
her mistress. In they all came, one after another; some 
shyly, some boldly, some gracefully, some awkwardly, 
some pushing, some pulling; in they all came, anyhow 
"and everyhow. Away they all went, twenty couple at 
once ; hands half round and back again the other way ; 
down the middle and up again; round and round in 
various stages of affectionate grouping; old top couple 
always turning up in the wrong place; new top couple 
starting off again, as soon as they got there; all top 



46 LOYOLA ENGLISH CLASSICS 

couples at last, and not a bottom one to help them! 
When this result was brought about, old Fezziwig, 
clapping his hands to stop the dance, cried out, "Well 
done!" and the fiddler plunged his hot face into a pot 
of porter, especially provided for that purpose. But, 
scorning rest, upon his reappearance he instantly began 
again, though there were no dancers yet, as if the other 
fiddler had been carried home, exhausted, on a shutter, 
and he were a brand-new man resolved to beat him out 
of sight, or perish. 1 

There were more dances, and there were forfeits, and 
more dances, and there was negus, 2 and there was a 
great piece of cold roast, and there was a great piece 
of cold boiled, and there were mince-pies, and plenty of 
beer. 3 But the great effect of the evening came after 
the roast and boiled, when the fiddler (an artful dog, 
mind ! the sort of man who knew his business better than 
you or I could have told it him!) struck up "Sir Roger 
de Coverley. ' '* Then old Fezziwig stood out to dance 
with Mrs. Fezziwig. Top couple, too; with a good stiff 
piece of work cut out for them ; three or four and twenty 
pair of partners ; people who were not to be trifled with ; 
people who would dance, and had no notion of walking. 

But if they had been twice as many — ah, four times 
— old Fezziwig would have been a match for them, and 
so would Mrs. Fezziwig. As to Jier, she was worthy to 
be his partner in every sense of the term. If that's not 
high praise, tell me higher, and I'll use it. A positive 
light appeared to issue from Fezziwig 's calves. They 
shone in every part of the dance like moons. You 
couldn't have predicted, at any given time, what would 
become of them next. And when old Fezziwig and Mrs. 
Fezziwig had gone all through the dance ; advance and , 
retire, both hands to your partner, bow and courtesy, 
corkscrew, thread-the-needle, and back again to your 
place ; Fezziwig ' ' cut ' ' 5 — cut so deftly, that he appeared 
to wink with his legs, and came upon his feet again with- 
out a stagger. 



A CHRISTMAS CAROL 47 

When the clock struck eleven, this domestic ball broke 
up. Mr. and Mrs. Fezziwig took their stations, one on 
either side of the door, and- shaking hands with every 
person individually as he or she went out, wished him 
or her a Merry Christmas. 1 When everybody had retired 
but the two 'prentices, they did the same to them ; and 
thus the cheerful voices died away, and the lads were 
left to their beds, which were under a counter in the 
back shop. 

During the whole of this time, Scrooge had acted 
like a man out of his wits. His heart and soul were in 
the scene, and with his former self. He corroborated 
everything, remembered everything, enjoyed everything, 
and underwent the strangest agitation. It was not until 
now, when the bright faces of his former self and Dick 
were turned from them, that he remembered the Ghost, 
and became conscious that it was looking full upon him, 
while the light upon its head burnt very clear. 

"A small matter," said the Ghost, "to make these 
silly folks so full of gratitude.',' 

' ' Small ! ' ' echoed Scrooge. 

The Spirit signed to him to listen to the two appren- 
tices, who were pouring out their hearts in praise of 
Fezziwig, and, when he had done so, said : 

"Why! Is it not? He has spent but a few pounds 
of your mortal money : three or four, perhaps. Is that 
so much that he deserves this praise ? ' ' 

' ' It isn 't that, ' ' said Scrooge, heated by the remark, 
and speaking unconsciously like his former, not his latter 
self, — "it isn't that, Spirit. He has the power to render 
us happy or unhappy ; to make our service light or bur- 
densome ; a pleasure or a toil. Say that his power lies 
in words and looks ; in things so slight and insignificant 
that it is impossible to add and count 'em up; what 
then? The happiness he gives is quite as great as if it 
cost a fortune. ' ' 

He felt the Spirit's glance, and stopped. 2 

"What is the matter V 7 asked the Ghost. 



48 LOYOLA ENGLISH CLASSICS 

"Nothing particular," said Scrooge. 

1 1 Something, I think ?" the Ghost insisted. 

' ' No, ' ' said Scrooge, — ' ' no. I should like to be able 
to say a word or two to my clerk just now. That's all." 

His former self turned down the lamps as he gave 
utterance to the wish; and Scrooge and the Ghost again 
stood side by side in the open air. 

"•My time grows short.*' observed the Spirit. 
"Quick !" 

This was not addressed to Scrooge, or to any one 
whom he could see, but it produced an immediate effect. 
For again Scrooge saw himself. 1 He was older now; a 
man in the prime of life. His face had not the harsh 
and rigid lines of later years ; but it had begun to wear 
the signs of care and avarice. There was an eager, 
greedy, restless motion in the eye, which showed the 
passion that had taken root, and where the shadow of 
the growing tree would fall. 

He was not alone, but sat by the side of a fair young 
girl in a mourning-dress, in whose eyes there were tears, 
which sparkled in the light that shone out of the Ghost 
of Christmas Fast. 

"It matters little," she said softly. "To you, very 
little. Another idol has displaced me ; and if it can cheer 
and comfort you in time to come, as I would have tried 
to do, I have no just cause to grieve." 

"What idol has displaced you 6 ?" he rejoined. 

' ' A golden one. ' ' 

"This is the even-handed dealing of the world!" he 
said. "There is nothing on which it is so hard as pov- 
erty ; and there is nothing it professes to condemn with 
such severity as the pursuit of wealth!" 

' ' You fear the world too much, ' ' she answered gently. 
"All your other hopes have merged into the hope of 
being beyond the chance of its sordid reproach. I have 
seen your nobler aspirations fall off one by one, until the 
master passion, Gain, engrosses you. Have I not?" 

' ' What then ? " he retorted. ' ' Even if I have grown 



A CHRISTMAS CAROL 49 

so much wiser, what then? I am not changed towards 
you." 

She shook her head. 

"Ami?" 

"Our contract is an old one. It was made when we 
were both poor, and content to be so, until, in good 
season, we could improve our worldly fortune by our 
patient industry. You are changed. When it was made, 
you were another man. ' ' 

' ' I was a boy, ' ' he said impatiently. 

"Your own feeling tells you that you were not what 
you are," she returned. "I am. That which promised 
happiness when we were one in heart is fraught with 
misery now that we are two. How often and how keenly 
I have thought of this, I will not say. It is enough that 
I have thought of it, and can release you." 

"Have I ever sought release?" 

' ' In words. No. Never. 

"In what, then?" 

"In a changed nature; in an altered spirit; in an- 
other atmosphere of life ; another Hope as its great end. 
In everything that made my love of any worth or value 
in your sight, If this had never been between us," said 
the girl, looking mildly, but with steadiness, upon him, 
"tell me, would you seek me out and try to win me now? 
Ah, no!" 1 

He seemed to yield to the justice of this supposition, 
in spite of himself. But he said, with a struggle, "You 
think not." 

"I would gladly thing otherwise if I could," she 
answered, "Heaven knows! When / have learned a 
Truth like this, I know how strong and irresistible it 
must be. But if you were free today, tomorrow, yester- 
day, can even I believe that you would choose a dower- 
less girl, — you who, in your very confidence with her, 
weigh everything by Gain; or, choosing her, if for a 
moment you were false enough to your one guiding 
principle to do so, do I not know that your repentance 



50 LOYOLA ENGLISH CLASSICS 

and regret would surely follow? I do; and I release 
you. With a full heart, for the love of him you once 
were. ' ' 

He was about to speak; but, with her head turned 
from him, she resumed : 

''You may — the memory of what is past half makes 
me hope you will — have pain in this. A very, very brief 
time, and you will dismiss the recollection of it, gladly, 
as an unprofitable dream, from which it happened well 
that you awoke. May you be happy in the life you have 
chosen ! ' ' 

She left him, and they parted. 

' ' Spirit ! ' ' said Scrooge, ' ' show me no more ! Conduct 
me home. Why do you delight to torture me?" 

' ' One shadow more ! ' ' exclaimed the Ghost. 

' ' No more ! ' ' cried Scrooge, — "no more. I don 't wish 
to see it, ShoAV me no more!" 

But the relentless Ghost pinioned him in both his 
arms, and forced him to observe what happened next, 

They were in another scene and place; a room, not 
very large or handsome, but full of comfort. Near to 
the winter fire sat a beautiful young girl, so like that 
last that Scrooge believed it was the same, until he saw 
her, now a comely matron, sitting opposite her daughter. 
The noise in this room was perfectly tumultuous, for there 
were more children there than Scrooge in his agitated 
state of mind could count; and, unlike the celebrated 
herd in the poem, 1 they were not forty children conduct- 
ing themselves like one, but every child was conducting 
itself like forty. The consequences were uproarious be- 
yond belief ; but no one seemed to care ; on the contrary, 
the mother and daughter laughed heartily, and enjoyed 
it very much ; and the latter, soon beginning to mingle 
in the sports, got pillaged by the young brigands most 
ruthlessly. What would I not have given to be one of 
them ! Though I never could have been so rude, no, no ! 
I wouldn't for the wealth of all the world have crushed 
that braided hair, and torn it down ; and for the precious 



A CHRISTMAS CAROL 51 

little shoe, I wouldn't have plucked it off, God bless my 
soul; to save my life. As to measuring her waist in 
sport, as they did, bold young brood, I couldn't have 
done it ; I should, have expected my arm to have grown 
round it for a punishment, and never come straight 
again. And yet I should have dearly liked, I own, to 
have touched her lips; to have questioned her, that she 
might have opened them ; to have looked upon the lashes 
of her downcast eyes, and never raised a blush ; to have 
let loose waves of hair, an inch of which would be a 
keepsake beyond price; in short, I should have liked, I 
do confess, to have had the lightest license of a child, 
and yet to have been man enough to know its value. 1 

But now a knocking 2 at the door was heard, and such 
a rush immediately ensued that she, with laughing face 
and plundered dress, was borne towards it, in the centre 
of a flushed and boisterous group, just in time to greet 
the father, who came home attended by a man laden with 
Christmas toys and presents. Then the shouting and 
the struggling, and the onslaught that was made on the 
defenseless porter! The scaling him, with chairs for 
ladders, to dive into his pockets, despoil him of brown- 
paper parcels, hold on tight by his cravat, hug him round 
the neck, pommel his back, and kick his legs in irrepres- 
sible affection ! The shouts of wonder and delight with 
which the development of every package was received! 
The terrible announcement that the baby had been taken 
in the act of putting a doll's frying-pan into his mouth, 
and was more than suspected of having swallowed a 
fictitious turkey, glued on a wooden platter! The im- 
mense relief of finding this a false alarm ! The joy 
and gratitude, and ecstasy! They are all indescribable 
alike. It is enough that, by degrees, the children and 
their emotions got out of the parlor, and, by one stair 
at a time, up to the top of the house, where they went 
to bed, and so subsided. 3 

And now Scrooge looked on more attentively than 
ever, when the master of the house, having his daughter 



52 LOYOLA ENGLISH CLASSICS 

leaning fondly on him, sat down with her and her mother 
at his own fireside; and when he thought that such an- 
other creature, quite asi graceful and as full of promise, 
might have called him father, and been a spring-time in 
the haggard winter of his life, his sight grew very dim 
indeed. 

"Belle," said the husband, turning to his wife with a 
smile, "I saw an old friend of yours this afternoon." 

"Who was it?" 

"Guess!" 

"How can I? Tut, don't I know?" she added in the 
same breath, laughing as he laughed. "Mr. Scrooge." 1 

"Mr. Scrooge it was. I passed his office window; 
and as it was not shut up, and he had a candle inside, 
I could scarcely help seeing him. His partner lies upon 
the point of death, I hear ; and there he sat alone. Quite 
alone in the world, I do believe. ' ' 

"Spirit!" said Scrooge, in a broken voice, "remove 
me from this place." 

"I told you these were shadows of the things that 
have been," said the Ghost. "That they are what they 
are, do not blame me ! ' ' 

"Remove me!" Scrooge exclaimed. "I cannot bear 
it!" 

He turned upon the Ghost, and, seeing that it looked 
upon him with a face in which, in some strange way, 
there were fragments of all the faces it had shown him, 
wrestled with it. 

"Leave me! Take me back! Haunt me no longer!' 

In the struggle, if that can be called a struggle In 
which the Ghost, with no visible resistance on its own 
part, was undisturbed by any effort of its adversary, 
Scrooge observed that its light was burning high and 
bright ; and dimly connecting that with its influence over 
him, he seized the extinguisher-cap, and by a sudden 
action pressed it down upon its head. 

The Spirit dropped beneath it, so that the extin- 



A CHRISTMAS CAROL 53 

guisher covered its whole form; but though Scrooge 
pressed it down with all his force, he could not hide tiie 
light, 1 which streamed from under it in an unbroken 
flood upon the ground. 

He was conscious of being exhausted, and overcome 
by an irresistible drowsiness; and, further, of being in 
his own bedroom. He gave the cap a parting squeeze, 
in which his hand relaxed; and had barely time to reel 
to bed before he sank into a heavy sleep. 



STAVE THREE 

THE SECOND OF THE THREE SPIRITS 

Awaking in the middle of a prodigiously tough 
snore, and sitting up in bed to get his thoughts together, 
Scrooge had no occasion to be told that the bell was 
again upon the stroke of One. He felt that he was 
restored to consciousness in the right nick of time, for 
the especial purpose of holding a conference with the 
second messenger dispatched to him through Jacob 
Marley's intervention. But, finding that he turned 
uncomfortably cold when he began to wonder which of 
his curtains this new spectre would draw back, he put 
them every one aside with his own hands, and, lying 
down again, established a sharp lookout ail round the 
bed. For he wished to challenge the Spirit on the mo- 
ment of its appearance, and did not wish to be taken by 
surprise, and made nervous. 

Now, being prepared for almost anything, he was not 
by any means prepared for nothing; and, consequently, 
when the bell struck One, and no shape appeared, he was 
taken with a violent fit of trembling. 2 Five minutes, ten 
minutes, a quarter of an hour went by, yet nothing came. 
All this time he lay upon his bed, the very core and 
center of a blaze of ruddy light, which streamed upon it 
when the clock proclaimed the hour; and which, being 
only light, was more alarming than a dozen ghosts, as he 



54 LOYOLA ENGLISH CLASSICS 

was powerless to make out what it meant, or would be at ; 
and was sometimes apprehensive that he might be at 
that very moment an interesting case of spontaneous 
combustion, without having the consolation of knowing 
it. At last, however, he began to think, — as you or I 
would have thought at first; for it is always the person 
not in the predicament who knows what ought to have 
been done in it, and would unquestionably have done 
it too, — at last, I say, he began to think that the source 
and secret of this ghostly light might be in the adjoining 
room, from w T hence, on further tracing it, it seemed to 
shine. This idea taking full possession of his mind, he 
got up softly, and shuffled in his slippers 1 to the door. 

The moment Scrooge's hand was on the lock, a 
strange voice called him by his name, and bade him enter. 
He obeyed. 

It was his own room. There was no doubt about 
that. But it had undergone a surprising transformation. 
The walls and ceiling were so hung with living green 
that it looked a perfect grove ; from every part of which 
bright, gleaming berries glistened. The crisp leaves of 
holly, mistletoe, and ivy reflected back the light, as if so 
many little mirrors had been scattered there; and such 
a mighty blaze went roaring up the chimney, as that dull 
petrifaction of a hearth had never known in Scrooge's 
time, or Marley 's, or for many and many a winter season 
gone. Heaped up on the floor, to form a kind of throne, 
were turkeys, geese, game, poultry, brawn, 2 great joints 
of meat, sucking pigs, long wreaths of sausages, mince- 
pies, plum-puddings, barrels of oysters, red-hot chest- 
nuts, cherry-cheeked apples, juicy oranges, luscious 
pears, immense twelfth-cakes, 3 and seething bowls of 
punch, that made the chamber dim with their delicious 
steam. In easy state upon this couch, there sat a jolly 
Giant, 4 glorious to see; w r ho bore a glowing torch, in 
shape not unlike Plenty 's horn, 5 and held it up, high up, 
to shed its light on Scrooge, as he came peeping round 
the door. 



A CHRISTMAS CAROL 55 

"Come in!" exclaimed the Ghost, — "come in! and 
know me better, man!" 

Scrooge entered timidly, and hnng his head before 
this Spirit. He was not the dogged Scrooge he had 
been; and though the Spirit's eyes were clear and kind, 
he did not like to meet them. 

"I am the Ghost of Christmas Present," said the 
Spirit. ' ' Look upon me ! ' ' 

Scrooge reverently did so. It was clothed in one 
simple, deep green robe or mantle, bordered with white 
fur. This garment hung so loosely on the figure that its 
capacious breast was bare, as if disdaining to be warded 
or concealed by any artifice. Its feet, observable beneath 
the ample folds of the garment, were also bare; and on 
its head it wore no other covering than a holly wreath, 
set here and there with shining icicles. Its dark brown 
curls were long and free; free as its genial face, its 
sparkling eye, its open hand, its cheery voice, its uncon- 
strained demeanor, and its joyful air. Girded round its 
middle 1 was an antique scabbard ; but no sword was in 
it, and the ancient sheath was eaten up with rust, 2 

' ' You have never seen the like of me before ! ' ' ex- 
claimed the Spirit. 

"Never," Scrooge made answer to it. 

' ' Have never walked forth with the younger members 
of my family ; meaning (>for I am very young) my elder 
brothers born in these later years?" pursued the 
Phantom. 

"I don't think I have," said Scrooge. 'I am afraid 
I have not. Have you had many brothers, Spirit?" 

"More than eighteen hundred," said the Ghost. 

"A tremendous family to provide for," muttered 
Scrooge. 

The Ghost of Christmas Present rose. 

"Spirit," said Scrooge submissively, "conduct me 
where you will. I went forth last night on compulsion, 
and I learnt a lesson which is working now. Tonight, 
if you have aught to teach me, let me profit by it." 



56 LOYOLA ENGLISH CLASSICS 

"Touch my robe!" 

Scrooge did as he was told, and held it fast. 

Holly, mistletoe, red beries, ivy, turkeys, geese, game, 
poultry, brawn, meat, pigs, sausages, oysters, pies, pud- 
dings, fruit, and punch all vanished instantly. So did 
the room, the fire, the ruddy glow, the hour of night; 
and they stood in the city streets on Christmas morning, 
where (for the weather was severe) the people made a 
rough but brisk and no unpleasant kind of music,' in 
scraping the snow from the pavement in front of their 
dwellings, and from the tops of their houses, whence it 
was mad delight to the boys to see it come plumping 
down in the road below, and splitting into artificial 
little snow-storms. 

The house fronts looked black enough, and the win- 
dows blacker, contrasting with the smooth white sheet 
of snow upon the roofs, and with the dirtier snow upon 
the ground ; which last deposit had been ploughed up 
in deep furrows by the heavy wheels of carts and 
wagons; furrows that crossed and recrossed each other 
hundreds of times where the great streets branched off: 
and made intricate channels, hard to trace, in the thick 
yellow mud and icy water.- The sky was gloomy, and 
the shortest streets were choked up with a dingy mist. 
half thawed, half frozen, whose heavier particles 
descended in a shower of sooty atoms, as- if all the 
chimneys in Great Britain had, by one consent, caught 
fire, and were blazing away to their hearts' content. 
There was nothing very cheerful in the climate or the 
town, and yet was there an air of cheerfulness abroad 
that the clearest summer air and brightest summer sun 
might have endeavored to diffuse in vain. 

For the people who were shovelling away on the 
housetops were jovial and full of glee, calling out to one 
another from the parapets, and now and then exchang- 
ing a facetious snowball, — better-natured missile far 
than many a wordy jest, — laughing heartily if it went 
right, and not less heartily if it went wrong. The 



A CHRISTMAS CAROL 57 

poulterers' shops were still half open, and the fruiterers' 
were radiant in their glory. There w r ere great, round, 
pot-bellied baskets of chestnuts, shaped like the waist- 
coats of jolly old gentlemen, lolling at the doors, and 
tumbling out into the street in their apoplectic opulence. 
There were ruddy, brown-faced, broad-girthed Spanish 
onions, shining in the fatness of their growth like Span- 
ish friars, and winking from their shelves in wanton 
slyness at the girls as they went by, and glanced demure- 
ly at the hung-up mistletoe. There were pears and 
apples, clustered high in blooming pyramids ; there were 
bunches of grapes, made, in the shopkeepers' benevo- 
lence, to dangle from conspicuous hooks, that people's 
mouths might water gratis as they passed ; there were 
piles of filberts, mossy and brown, recalling, in their 
fragrance, ancient walks among the woods, and pleasant 
shufflings ankle deep through withered leaves; there 
w r ere Norfolk biffins, 1 squab and swarthy, setting off the 
yellow of the oranges and lemons, and, in the great 
compactness of their juicy persons, urgently entreating 
and beseeching to be carried home in paper bags and 
eaten after dinner. The very gold and silver fish, set 
forth among these choice fruits in a bowl, though mem- 
bers of a dull and stagnant-blooded race, appeared to 
know^ that there was something going on ; and, to a fish, 
went gasping round and round their little w T orld in slow 
and passionless excitement. 

The grocers'! oh, the grocers'! nearly closed, with 
perhaps two shutters down, or one, but through those 
gaps such glimpses! It was not alone that the scales 
descending on the counter made a merry sound, or that 
the twine and roller parted company so briskly, or that 
the canisters w r ere rattled up and down like juggling 
tricks, or even that the blended scents of tea and coffee 
were so grateful to the nose, 2 or even that the raisins 
were so plentiful and rare, the almonds so extremely 
white, the sticks of cinnamon so long and straight, the 
other spices so delicious, the candied fruits so caked and 



58 LOYOLA ENGLISH CLASSICS 

spotted with molten sugar as to make the coldest lookers- 
on feel faint, and subsequently bilious. Nor was it that 
the figs were moist and pulpy, or that the French plums 
blushed in modest tartness from their highly decorated 
boxes, or that everything was good to eat and in its 
Christmas dress; but the customers were all so hurried 
and so eager in the hopeful promise of the day, that they 
tumbled up against each other at the door, crashing their 
wicker baskets wildly, and left their purchases upon the 
counter, and came running back to fetch them, and com- 
mitted hundreds of the like mistakes, in the best humor 
possible, while the grocer and his people were so frank 
and fresh that the polished hearts with which they 
fastened their aprons behind might have been their own, 
worn outside for general inspection, and for Christmas 
daws to peck at, if they chose. 1 

But soon the steeples called good people all 2 to church 
and chapel, and away they came, nocking through the 
streets in their best clothes, and with their gayest faces. 
And at the same time there emerged from scores of 
by-streets, lanes, and nameless turnings innumerable 
people, carrying their dinners to the bakers' shops. 3 The 
sight of these poor revellers appeared to interest the 
Spirit very much, for he stood, with Scrooge beside him, 
in a baker's doorway, and, taking off the covers as their 
bearers passed, sprinkled incense on their dinners from 
his torch. And it was a very uncommon kind of torch, 
for once or twice when there were angry words between 
some dinner-carriers who had jostled each other, he shed 
a few drops of water on them from it, and their good 
humor was restored directly. For they said, it was a 
shame to quarrel on Christmas Day. And so It was! 
God love it, so it was! 

In time the bells ceased, and the bakers were shut 
up; and yet there was a genial shadowing forth of all 
these dinners, and the progress of their cooking, in the 
thawed blotch 4 of wet above each baker 's oven, where the 
pavement smoked as if its stones were cooking too. 



A CHRISTMAS CAROL 59 

"Is there a peculiar flavor in what you sprinkle 
from your torch?" asked Scrooge. 

" There is. My own." 

' ' Would it apply to any kind of dinner on this day ? ' ' 
asked Scrooge. 

' ' To any kindly given. To a poor one most. ' ' 

''Why to a poor one most?" asked Scrooge. 
'Because it needs it most." 

"Spirit," said Scrooge, after a moment's thought, "I 
wonder you, of all the beings in the many worlds about 
us, should desire to cramp these people's opportunities 
of innocent enjoyment." 

"I!" cried the Spirit. 

"You would deprive them of their means of dining 
every seventh day, often the only day on which they can 
be said to dine at all," said Scrooge: "wouldn't you?" 

" I " said the Spirit. 

' ' You seek to close these places on the Seventh Day, ' ' 
said Scrooge. ' ' And it comes to the same thing. ' ' 

1 * 1 seek ! ' ' exclaimed the Spirit. 

"Forgive me if I am wrong. It has been done in 
your name, or at least in that of your family," said 
Scrooge. 

' ' There are some upon this earth of yours, ' ' returned 
the Spirit, ' ' who lay claim to know us, and who do their 
deeds of passion, pride, ill-will, hatred, envy, bigotry, 
and selfishness in our name, who are as strange to us, 
and all our kith and kin, as if they had never lived. 
Remember that, and charge their doings on themselves, 
not us. ' ' 

Scrooge promised that he would ; and they went on, 
invisible, as they had been before, into the suburbs of tiie 
town. It was a remarkable quality of the Ghost (which 
Scrooge had observed at the baker's), that notwithstand- 
ing his gigantic size, he could accomodate himself to 
any place with ease; and that he stood beneath a low 
roof quite as gracefully, and like a supernatural crea- 
ture, as was possible he could have done in any lofty 
hall. 



60 LOYOLA ENGLISH CLASSICS 

And perhaps it was the pleasure the good Spirit had 
in showing oft' this power of his, or else it was his own 
kind, generous, hearty nature, and his sympathy with all 
poor men, that led him straight to Scrooge's clerk's; for 
there he went, and took Scrooge with him, holding to his 
robe ; and on the threshold of the door the Spirit smiled, 
and stopped to bless Bob Cratchit's dwelling with the 
sprinklings of his torch. Think of that ! Bob had but 
fifteen "Bob" 1 a week himself; he pocketed on Saturdays 
but fifteen copies of his Christian name ; and yet the 
Ghost of Christmas Present blessed his four-roomed 
house ! 

Then up rose Mrs. Cratchit, Cratchit's wife, dressed 
out but poorly in a twice-turned gown, but brave in 
ribbons, which are cheap and make a goodly show for 
sixpence ; and she laid the cloth, assisted by Belinda 
Cratchit, second of her daughters, also brave in ribbons; 
while Master Peter Cratchit plunged a fork into the 
saucepan of potatoes, and getting the corners of his 
monstrous shirt-collar (Bob's private property, confer- 
red upon his son and heir in honor of. the day) into his 
mouth, rejoiced to find himself so gallantly attired, and 
yearned to show his linen in the fashionable Parks. 
And now two smaller Cratchits, boy and girl, came tear- 
ing in, screaming that outside the baker's they had smelt 
the goose, and known it for their own; and, basking in 
luxurious thoughts of sage and onion, these young 
Cratchits danced about the table, and exalted Master 
Peter Cratchit to the skies, while he (not proud, al- 
though his collars nearly choked him) blew the fire, until 
the slow potatoes, bubbling up, knocked loudly- at the 
saucepan lid to be let out and peeled. 

"What has ever got your precious father, then?" 
said Mrs. Cratchit. "And your brother, Tiny Tim? 
And Martha warn't as late last Christmas Day by half 
an hour!" 

"Here's Martha, mother," said a girl, appearing as 
she spoke. 



A CHRISTMAS CAROL 61 

"Here's Martha, mother!" cried the two young 
Cratchits. ' ' Hurrah ! There 's such a goose, Martha ! ' ' 

' l Why, bless your heart alive, my dear, how late you 
are ! ' ' said Mrs. Cratchit, kissing her a dozen times, and 
taking off her shawl and bonnet for her with officious 
zeal. 1 

"We'd a deal of work to finish up last night," re- 
plied the girl, " and had to clear away this morning, 
mother ! ' ' 

' ' Well ! Never mind so long as you are come, ' ' said 
Mrs. Cratchit. "Sit ye down before the fire, my dear, 
and have a warm, Lord bless ye ! " 

' ' No, no ! There 's father coming, ' ' cried the two 
young Cratchits, who were everywhere at once. "Hide, 
Martha, hide!" 

So Martha hid herself, and in came little Bob, the 
father, with at least three feet of comforter, exclusive 
of the fringe, hanging down before him ; and his thread- 
bare clothes darned up and brushed, to look seasonable ; 
and Tiny Tim upon his shoulder. Alas for Tiny Tim, 
he bore a little crutch, and had his limbs supported 
by an iron frame ! 2 

"Why, where's our Martha?" cried Bob Cratchit,. 
looking round. 

"Not coming," said Mrs. Cratchit. 

"Not coming!" said Bob, with a sudden declension 
in his high spirits; for he had been Tim's blood horse 
all the way from church, and had come home rampant. 
"Not coming upon Christmas Day!" 

Martha didn 't like to see him disappointed, if it were 
only a joke ; so she came out prematurely from behind 
the closet door, and ran into his arms, while the two 
young Craehits hustled Tiny Tim, and bore him off into 
the wash-house, that he might hear the pudding singing 
in the copper. 3 

"And how did little Tim behave?" asked Mrs. 
Cratchit, when she had rallied Bob on his credulity, and 
Bob hugged his daughter to his heart's content. 



62 LOYOLA ENGLISH CLASSICS 

"As good as gold," said Bob, "and better.. Somehow 
he gets thoughtful, sitting by himself so much, and 
thinks the strangest things you ever heard. He told me, 
coming home, that he hoped the people saw him in the 
church, because he was a cripple, and it might be 
pleasant to them to remember, upon Christmas Day, 
who made lame beggars walk and blind men see." 1 

Bob's voice was tremulous when he told them this, 
and trembled more when he said that Tiny Tim was 
growing strong and hearty. 

His active little crutch 2 was heard upon the floor, 
and back came Tiny Tim before another word was 
spoken, escorted by his brother and sister to his stool 
beside the fire ; and while Bob, turning up his cuffs — as 
if, poor fellow, they were capable of being made more 
shabby, — compounded some hot mixture in a jug with 
gin and lemons, and stirred it round and round, and put 
it on the hob to simmer. Master Peter and the two 
ubiquitous young Cratchits went to fetch the goose, with 
which they soon returned in high procession. 

, Such a bustle ensued that you might have thought a 
goose the rarest of all birds; a feathered phenomenon, 
to which a black swan was a matter of course — and in 
truth it was something very like it in that house. Mrs. 
C rat chit made the gravy (ready beforehand in a little 
saucepan) hissing hot; Master Peter mashed the potatoes 
with incredible vigor; Miss Belinda sweetened up the 
apple-sauce; Martha dusted the hot plates; Bob took 
Tiny Tim beside him in a corner at the table; the 
two young Cratchits set chairs for everybody, not for- 
getting themselves, and mounting guard upon their 
posts, crammed spoons into their mouths, lest they should 
shriek for goose before their turn came to be helped. 3 
At last the dishes were set on, and grace was said. It 
was succeeded by a breathless pause, as Mrs. Cratchit, 
looking slowly all along the carving-knife, prepared to 
plunge it in the breast ; but when she did, and when the 
long-expected gush of stuffing issued forth, one murmur 



A CHRISTMAS CAROL 63 

of delight arose all along the board, and even Tiny Tim, 
excited by the two young Cratchits, beat on the table 
with the handle of his knife, and feebly cried, 
"Hurrah!" 1 

There was never such a goose. Bob said he didn't 
believe there ever was such a goose cooked. Its tender- 
ness and flavor, size and cheapness, were the themes of 
universal admiration. Eked out by apple-sauce and 
mashed potatoes, it was a sufficient dinner for the whole 
family ; indeed, as Mrs. Oat chit said with great delight 
(surveying one small atom of a bone "upon the dish 2 ), 
they hadn't ate it all at last! Yet every one had had 
enough, and the youngest Cratchits in particular were 
steeped in sage and onion to the eyebrows! But now, 
the plates being changed by Miss Belinda, Mrs. Cratchit 
left the room alone — too nervous to bear witnesses — 
to take the pudding up, and bring it in. 

Suppose it should not be done enough! Suppose it 
should break in turning out ! Suppose somebody should 
have got over the wall of the back-yard, and stolen it, 
while they were merry with the goose, — a supposition at 
Avhich the two young Cratchits became livid! All sorts 
of horrors were supposed. 

Hallo! A great deal of steam! The pudding was 
out of the copper. A smell like a washing-daj 7 ! That 
was the cloth. A smell like an eating-nouse and a 
pastry-cook's next door to each other, with a laundress's 
next door to that ! That was the pudding ! In half a 
minute Mrs. Cratchit entered — flushed, but smiling 
proudly — with the pudding, like a speckled cannon-ball, 
so hard and firm, blazing in half of half-a-quartern of 
ignited brandy, and bedight with Christmas holly stuck 
into the top. 

Oh, a wonderful pudding! 3 Bob Cratchit said, and 
calmly, too, that he regarded it as the greatest success 
achieved by Mrs. Cratchit since their marriage. Mrs. 
Cratchit said that, now the weight was off her mind, she 
would confess she had her doubts about the quantity of 



64 LOYOLA ENGLISH CLASSICS 

flour. Everybody had something to say about it, but 
nobody said or thought it was at all a small pudding for 
a large family. It would have been flat heresy to do so. 
Any Cratchit would have blushed to hint at such a thing. 

At last the dinner was all done, the cloth was cleared, 
the hearth swept, and the fire made up. The compound 
in the jug being tasted, and considered perfect, apples 
and oranges were put upon the table, and a shovelful of 
chestnuts on the fire. Then all the Cratchit family drew 
round the hearth in what Bob Cratchit called a circle, 
meaning half a one ; and at Bob Cratchit 's elbow stood . 
the family display of glass,— two tumblers, and a cus- 
tard cup without a handle. 

These held the hot stuff from the jug, however, as 
well as golden goblets would have done ; and Bob served 
it out with beaming looks, while the chestnuts on the 
fire sputtered and cracked noisily. Then Bob proposed: 

"A Merry Christmas to us all. mv dears. God bless 



us 



I" 



Which all the family re-echoed. 

"God bless us every one! 1 ' 1 said Tiny Tim, the last 
of all. 

He sat very close to his father's side, upon his little 
stool. Bob held his withered little hand in his, as if he 
loved the child, and wished to keep him by his side, and 
dreaded that he might be taken from him. ■ 

"Spirit," said Scrooge, with an interest he had never 
felt before, "tell me if Tiny Tim will live." 2 

"I see a vacant seat," replied the Ghost, "in the 
poor chimney-corner, and a crutch without an owner, 
carefully preserved. If these shadows remain unaltered 
by the Future, the child will die. ' ' 

' ' No, no, ' ' said Scrooge. ' ' Oh, no, kind Spirit ! say 
he will be spared. ' ' 

"If these shadows remain unaltered by the Future, 
none other of my race," returned the Ghost, "will find 
him here. What then? If he be like to die, he had 
better do it, and decrease the surplus population." 



A CHRISTMAS CAROL 65 

Scrooge hung his head to hear his own words quoted 
by the Spirit, and was overcome with penitence and 
grief. 

' ' Man, ' ' said the Ghost, * i if man you be in' heart, not 
adamant, forbear that wicked cant until you have dis- 
covered what the surplus is, and where it is. Will you 
decide what men shall live, what men shall die? It 
may be that in the sight of Heaven you are more 
worthless and less fit to live than millions like this poor 
man 's child. God ! to hear the insect on the leaf 
pronouncing on the too much life among his hungry 
brothers in the dust ! ' ' 

Scrooge bent before the Ghost's rebuke, and trem- 
bling cast his eyes upon the ground. But he raised 
them speedily, on hearing his own name. 

"Mr. Scrooge!" said Bob; "I'll give you Mr. 
Scrooge, the Founder of the Feast!" 

"The Founder of the Feast, indeed!" cried Mrs. 
Cratchit, reddening. " I wish I had him here. I'd give 
him a piece of my mind to feast upon, and I hope he'd 
have a good appetite for it." 

' ' My dear, ' ' said Bob, k ' the children ! Christmas 
Day!"* 

4 ' It should be Christmas Day, I am sure, ' ' said she, 
"on which one drinks the health of such an odious, 
stingy, hard, unfeeling man as Mr. Scrooge. 1 You know 
he is, Robert ! Nobody knows it better than you do, 
poor fellow!" 

"My dear," was Bob's mild answer, "Christmas 
Day."' 

' ' I '11 drink his health for your sake, and the day 's, ' ' 
said Mrs. Cratchit, k ' not for him. Long life to him ! A 
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! He'll be 
very merry and very happy, I have no doubt!" 

The children drank the toast after her. It was the 
first of their proceedings which had no heartiness in it. 
Tiny Tim drank it last of all, but he didn't care two- 
pence for it. Scrooge was the Ogre of the family. The 



66 LOYOLA ENGLISH CLASSICS 

mention of his name cast a dark shadow on the party, 
which was not dispelled for full five minutes. 

After it had passed away, they were ten times mer- 
rier than before, from the mere relief of Scrooge the 
Baleful being done with. Bob Cratchit told them how 
he had a situation in his eye for Master Peter, which 
would bring in, if obtained, full five-and-sixpence 
weekly. The two Cratchits laughed tremendously at the 
idea of Peter's being a man of business; and Peter him- 
self looked thoughtfully at the fire from between his 
collars, as if he were deliberating what particular in- 
vestments he should favor when he came into the receipt 
of that bewildering income. Martha, who was a poor 
apprentice at a milliner's, then told them what kind of 
work she had to do, and how many hours she worked at 
a stretch, and haw she meant to lie abed tomorrow 
morning for a good, long rest ; tomorrow being a holiday 
she passed at home. Also how she had seen a countess 
and a lord some days before, and how the lord "was 
much about as tall as Peter;" at which Peter pulled up 
his collars so high that you couldn 't have seen his head if 
you had been there. All this time the chestnuts and the 
jug went round and round; and by and by they had a 
song, about a lost child travelling in the snow, from Tiny 
Tim, who had a plaintive little voice, and sang it very 
well indeed. 

There was nothing of high mark in this. They were 
not a handsome family ; they were not well dressed ; their 
shoes were far from being Avater-proof ; their clothes 
were scanty; and Peter might have known, and very 
likely did, the inside of a pawnbroker's. But they were 
happy, grateful, pleased with one another, and contented 
with the time ; and when they faded, and looked happier 
yet in the bright sprinklings of the Spirit's torch at 
parting, Scrooge had his eye upon them, and especially 
on Tiny Tim, until the last. 1 

By this time it was getting dark, and snowing pretty 
heavily; and as Scrooge and the Spirit went along the 



A CHRISTMAS CAROL 



67 



streets, the brightness of the roaring fires in kitchens, 
parlors, and all sorts of rooms was wonderful. Here, 
the flickering of the blaze showed preparations for a 
cosey dinner, with hot plates baking through and 
through before the fire, and deep red curtains, ready to 
be drawn to shut out cold and darkness. There, all the 
children of the house were running out into the snow to 
meet their married sisters, brothers, cousins, uncles, 
aunts, and be the first to greet them. 1 Here, again, were 
shadows on the window blinds of guests assembling ; and 
there a group of handsome girls, all hooded and fur- 
booted, and all chattering at once, tripped lightly off to 
some near neighbor's house, where woe upon the single 
man who saw them enter— artful witches! well they 
knew it — in a glow. 

But, if you had judged from the numbers of people 
on their way to friendly gatherings, you might have 
thought that no one was at home to give them welcome 
when they got there, instead of every house expecting 
company, and piling up its -fires half-chimney high. 
Blessing on it, how the Ghost exulted ! How it bared 
its breadth of breast, and opened its capacious palm, 
and floated on, outpouring, with a generous hand, its 
bright and harmless mirth on everything within its 
reach ! The very lamplighter, who ran on before, dotting 
the dusky street with specks of light, 2 and who was 
dressed to spend the evening somewhere, laughed out 
loudly as the Spirit passed, though little kenned the 
lamplighter that he had any company but Christmas! 

And now, without a word of warning from the 
Ghost, they stood upon a bleak and desert moor, where 
monstrous masses of rude stone were cast about, as 
though it were the burial-place of giants; and water 
spread itself wheresoever it listed, or would have done 
so but for the frost that held it prisoner; and nothing 
orew but moss and furze, and coarse, rank grass. Down 
in the west the setting sun had left a streak of fiery red, 
which glared upon the desolation for an instant, like a 



68 LOYOLA ENGLISH CLASSICS 

sullen eye, and, frowning lower, lower, lower yet, was 
lost in the thick gloom of darkest night. 

"What place is this?" asked Scrooge. 

"A place where miners live, who labor in the bowels 
of the earth," returned the Spirit. "But they know 
me. See!" 

A light shone from the window of a hut, and swiftly 
they advanced towards it. Passing through the wall of 
mud and stone, they found a cheerful company assem- 
bled round a glowing fire. An old, old man and woman, 
with their children and their children's children, and 
another generation beyond that, all decked out gayiy in 
their holiday attire. The old man, in a voice that seldom 
rose above the howling of the wind upon the barren 
waste, was singing them a Christmas song, — it had been 
a very old song when he was a boy, — and from time to 
time they all joined in the chorus. So surely as they 
raised their voices, the old man got quite blithe and 
loud ; and so surely as they stopped, his vigor sank again. 

The Spirit did not tarry here, but bade Scrooge hold 
his robe, and passing on above the moor, sped — whither ? 
Not to sea? To sea. To Scrooge's horror, looking back, 
he saw the last of the land, a frightful range of rocks, 
behind them; and his ears were deafened by the 
thundering of water, as it rolled, and roared, and raged 1 
among the dreadful caverns it had worn, and fiercely 
tried to undermine the earth. 

Built upon a dismal reef of sunken rocks, some league 
or so from shore, on which the waters chafed and 
dashed the wild year through, there stood a solitary 
lighthouse. Great heaps of seaweed clung to its base, 
and storm-birds — born of the wind, one might suppose, 
as seaweed of the water — rose and fell about it, like the 
waves they skimmed. 

But even here, two men who watched the light had 
made a fire, that through the loophole in the thick stone 
wall shed out a ray of brightness on the awful sea. 
Joining their horny hands over the rough table at which 






A CHRISTMAS CAROL 69 

they sat, they wished each other Merry Christmas in 
their can of grog; and one of them, the elder, too, with 
his face all damaged and scarred with hard weather, as 
the figure-head 1 of an old ship might be, struck up a 
sturdy song that was like a gale in itself. 

Again the Ghost sped on, above the black and 
heaving sea, — on, on, — until, being far away, as he told 
Scrooge, from any shore, he lighted on a ship. They 
stood beside the helmsman at the wheel, the lookout in 
the bow, the officers who had the watch ; dark, ghostly 
figures in their several stations; but every man among 
them hummed a Christmas tune, or had a Christmas 
thought, or spoke below his breath to his companion of 
some bygone Christmas Day, with homeward hopes 
belonging to it. And every man on board, waking or 
sleeping, good or bad, had had a kinder Avord for one 
another on that day than on any day in the year; and 
had shared to some extent in its festivities; and' had 
remembered those he cared for at a distance, and had 
known that they delighted to remember him. 2 

It was a great surprise to Scrooge, while listening 
to the moaning of the wind, and thinking what a solemn 
thing it Avas to move on through the lonely darkness over 
an unknoAvn abyss, whose depths w T ere secrets as pro- 
found as death, — it was a great surprise to Scrooge, 
while thus engaged, to hear a hearty laugh. It was a 
much greater surprise to Scrooge to recognize it as his 
own nephew T 's, and to find himself in a bright, dry, 
gleaming room, with the Spirit standing smiling by his 
side, and looking at that same nephew w T ith approving 
affability ! 

' ' Ha, ha ! " laughed Scrooge 's nephew.' ' Ha, ha, ha ! " 

If you should happen, by any unlikely chance, to 
know a man more blest in a laugh than Scrooge's 
nephew, all I can say is, I should like to know him, too. 
Introduce him to me, and I '11 cultivate his acquaintance. 

It is a fair, even-handed, noble adjustment of things, 
that, while there is infection in disease and sorrow, there 
is nothing in the world so irresistibly contagious as 



70 LOYOLA ENGLISH CLASSICS 

laughter and good humor. When Scrooge's nephew 
laughed in this way, holding his sides, rolling his head, 
and twisting his face into the most extravagant contor- 
tions. Scrooge's niece, by marriage, laughed as heartily 
as he. And their assembled friends, being not a bit 
behindhand, roared out lustily. 

"Ha, ha! Ha, ha, ha, ha ! ' ?1 

"He said that Christmas was a humbug, as I live!" 
cried Scrooge's nephew. "He believed it, too!" 

"More shame for him, Fred!" said Scrooge's niece 
indignantly. Bless those women ! they never do anything 
by halves. They are always in earnest. 

She was very pretty ; exceedingly pretty. With a 
dimpled, surprised-looking, capital face; a ripe little 
mouth, that seemed made to be kissed, — as no doubt it 
was; all kinds of good little dots about her chin, that 
melted into one another when she laughed ; and the sun- 
niest pair of eyes you ever saw in any little creature's 
head. Altogether she was what you w^ould have called 
provoking, you know; but satisfactor}^, too. Oh, per- 
fectly satisfactory ! 

"He's a comical old fellow." said Scrooge's nephew, 
"that's the truth; and not so pleasant as he might be. 
However, his offences carry their own punishment, and 
I have nothing to say against him." 

"I'm sure he is very rich, Fred," hinted Scrooge's 
niece. ' ' At least you always tell mc so. ' ' 

"What of that, my dear?" said Scrooge's nephew. 
' ' His wealth is of no use to him. He don 't do any good 
with it. He don 't make himself comfortable with it. He 
hasn't the satisfaction of thinking — ha, ha, ha! — that he 
is ever going to benefit us with it. ' ' 

"I have no patience with him," observed Scrooge's 
niece. Scrooge's niece's sisters, and all the other ladies, 
expressed the same opinion. 

"Oh, I have!" said Scrooge's nephew. "I am sorry 
for him : I couldn 't be angry with him if I tried. Who 
suffers by his ill whims? Himself, always. Here, he 



A CHRISTMAS CAROL 71 

takes it into his head to dislike us, and he won't come 
and dine with us. What's the consequence? He don't 
lose much of a dinner. ' n 

''Indeed, I think he loses a very good dinner," in- 
terrupted Scrooge's niece. Everybody else said the 
same, and they must be allowed to have been competent 
judges, because they had just had dinner ; and, with the 
dessert upon the table, were clustered round the fire, by 
lamplight. 

"Well! I am very glad to hear it," said Scrooge's 
nephew, "because I haven't any great faith in these 
young housekeepers. What do you say, Topper ?" 

Topper had clearly got his eye upon one of Scrooge 's 
niece's sisters, for he answered that a bachelor was a 
wretched outcast, who had no right to express an opinion 
on the subject. Whereat Scrooge's niece's sister — the 
plump one with the lace tucker, not the one with the 
roses — blushed. 

"Do go on, Fred, ' ' said Scrooge 's niece, clapping her 
hands. "'He never finishes what he begins to say! He 
is such a ridiculous fellow ! ' ' 

Scrooge's nephew revelled in another laugh, and as 
it was impossible to keep the infection off, though trie 
plump sister tried hard to do it with aromatic vinegar, 
his example was unanimously followed. 

"I was only going to say," said Scrooge's nephew, 
"that the consequence of his taking a dislike to us, and 
not making merry with us, is, as I think, that he loses 
some pleasant moments, which could do him no Harm. 
I am sure he loses pleasanter companions than he can 
find in his own thoughts, either in his mouldy old office 
or his dusty chambers. I mean to give him the same 
chance every year, whether he likes it or not, for I pity 
him. He may rail at Christmas till he dies, but he can't 
help thinking better of it — I defy him — if he finds me 
going there, in good temper, year after year, and saying, 
' Uncle Scrooge, how are you V If it only puts him in the 



72 LOYOLA ENGLISH CLASSICS 

vein to leave his poor elerk fifty pounds, that's some- 
thing; and I think I shook him, yesterday." 

It was their turn to laugh now, at the notion of his 
shaking Scrooge. But being thoroughly good-natured, 
and not much earing what they laughed at, so that they 
laughed at any rate, he encouraged them in their merri- 
ment, and passed the bottle joyously. 

After tea, they had some music. For they were a 
musical family, and knew what they were about, when 
they sung a glee or catch. I can assure you: especially 
Topper, who could growl away in the bass like a good 
one. and never swell the large veins in his forehead, or 
get red in the face over it. Scrooge's niece played Avell 
upon the harp ; and played, among other tunes, a simple 
little air (a mere nothing: you might learn to whistle it 
in two minutes) which had been familiar to the child 
who fetched Scrooge from the boarding-school as he had 
been reminded by the Ghost of Christmas Past. When 
this strain of music sounded, all the things that the 
Ghost had shown him came upon his mind; he softened 
more and more; and thought that if he could have 
listened to it often, years ago, he might have cultivated 
the kindnesses of life for his own happiness with his own 
hands, without resorting to the sexton's spade that 
buried Jacob Marley. 

But they didn't devote the whole evening to music. 
After a while they played at forfeits; for it is good to 
be children sometimes, and never better than at Christ- 
inas, when its mighty Founder was a child himself. 
Stop! There was first a game at blindman's buff. 1 Of 
course there was. And I no more believe Topper was 
really blind than I believe he had ej T es in his boots. My 
opinion is, that it was a done thing between him and 
Scrooge 's nephew ; and that the Ghost of Christmas 
Present knew it. The way he went after that plump 
sister in the lace tucker was an outrage on the credulity 
of human nature. Knocking down the fire-irons, 
tumbling over the chairs, bumping up against the piano, 



A CHRISTMAS CAROL (o 

smothering himself amongst the curtains, wherever she 
went, there went he ! He always knew where the plump 
sister was. He wouldn't catch anybody else. If you 
had fallen up against him (as some of them did) on 
purpose, he would have made a feint of endeavoring to 
seize you. which would have been an affront to your 
understanding, and would instantly have sidled off in 
the direction of the plump sister. She often cried out 
that it wasn 't fair ; and it really was not. But when, at 
last, he caught her; when in spite of all her silken 
rustlings, and her rapid flutterings past him, he got her 
into a corner whence there was no escape, then his 
conduct was the most execrable. For his pretending not 
to know here ; his pretending that it was necessary to 
touch her headdress, and further to assure himself of 
her identity by pressing a certain ring upon her finger, 
and a certain chain about her neck, was vile, monstrous! 
No doubt she told him her opinion of it, when, another 
blind man being in office, they were so very confidential 
together, behind the curtains. 

Scrooge's niece was not one of the blindman's buff 
party, but was made comfortable with a large chair and 
a footstool, in a snug" corner, where the Ghost and 
Scrooge were close behind her. But she joined in the 
forfeits, and loved her love to admiration with all the 
letters of the alphabet. Likewise at the game of How, 
When, and Where, she was very great, and, to the secret 
joy of Scrooge's nephew, beat her sisters hollow; though 
they were sharp girls, too, as Topper could have told you. 
There might have been twenty people there, young and 
old, but they all played, and so did Scrooge ; for, wholly 
forgetting, in the interest he had in what was going on, 
that his voice made no sound in their ears, he sometimes 
came out with his guess quite loud, and very often 
guessed right, too; for the sharpest needle, best White- 
chapel, warranted not to cut in the eye, was not sharper 
than Scrooge ; blunt as he took it in his head to be. 

The Ghost was greatly pleased to find him in this 



74 LOYOLA ENGLISH CLASSICS 

mood, and looked upon him with such favor, that he 
begged like a boy to be allowed to stay until the guests 
departed. But this the Spirit said could not be done. 

"Here is a new game," said Scrooge. "One-half 
hour, Spirit, only one!" 

It was a game called Yes and No, where Scrooge's 
nephew had to think of something, and the rest must 
find out what; he only answering to their questions yes 
or no, as the case was. The brisk fire of questioning to 
which he was exposed, elicited from him that he was 
thinking of an animal, a live animal, rather a disagree- 
able animal, a savage animal, an animal that growled and 
grunted sometimes, and talked sometimes, and lived in 
London, and walked about the streets, and wasn't made 
a show of, and wasn't led by anybody, and didn't live in 
a menagerie, and was never killed in a market, and was 
not a horse, or an ass, or a cow, or a bull, or a tiger, 
or a dog, or a pig, or a cat, or a bear. At every fresh 
question that was put to him, his nephew burst into a 
fresh roar of laughter ; and was so inexpressibly tickled, 
that he was obliged to get up off the sofa and stamp. 1 At 
last the plump sister, falling into a similar state, cried 
out : 

' ' I have found it out ! I know what it is, Fred ! I 
know what it is!" 

"What is it?" cried Fred. 

' ' It 's your Uncle Sero-o-o-o-oge ! ' ' 

Which it certainly was. Admiration was the uni- 
versal sentiment, though some objected that the reply to 
" Is it a bear ? ' ' ought to have been ' ' Yes ' ' ; inasmuch as 
an answer in the negative was sufficient to have diverted 
their thoughts from Mr. Scrooge, supposing they had 
ever had any tendency that way. 

"He has given us plenty of merriment, I am sure," 
said Fred, ' ' and it would be ungrateful not to drink his 
health. Here is a glass of mulled wine 2 ready to our 
hand at the moment; and I say, 'Uncle Scrooge'!" 

' ' Well ! Uncle Scrooge ! ' ' they cried. 



A CHRISTMAS CAROL 75 

"A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to the 
old man, whatever he is!" said Scrooge's nephew. "He 
wouldn't take it from me, but may he have it, never- 
theless, Uncle Scrooge!" 

Uncle Scrooge had imperceptibly become so gay and 
light of heart, that he would have pledged the uncon- 
scious company in return, and thanked them in an in- 
audible speech, if the Ghost had given him time. But 
the whole scene passed off in the breath of the last word 
spoken by his nephew ; and he and the Spirit were again 
upon their travels. 

Much they saw, and far 1 they went, and many homes 
they visited, but always with a happy end. The Spirit 
stood beside sick-beds, and they were cheerful; on for- 
eign lands, and they were close at home; by struggling 
men, and they were patient in their greater hope; by 
poverty, 'and it was rich. In almshouse, hospital, and 
jail, in misery's every refuge, where vain man in his 
little brief authority had not made fast the door, and 
barred the Spirit out, he left his blessing, and taught 
Scrooge his precepts. 

It was a long night, if it were only a night; but 
Scrooge had his doubts of this, because Christmas 
holidays appeared to be condensed into the space of 
time they passed together. It was strange, too, that 
while Scrooge remained unaltered in his outward form, 
the Ghost grew older, clearly older. Scrooge had ob- 
served this change, but never spoke of it, until they 
left a children's Twelfth Night party, when, looking at 
the Spirit as they stood together in an open place, he 
noticed that its hair was gray. 

"Are spirits' lives so short?" asked Scrooge." 

' ' My life upon this globe is very brief, ' ' replied the 
Ghost. ' "' It ends to-night. ' ' 

"To-night!" cried Scrooge. 

"To-night at midnight. Hark! The time is drawing 



76 LOYOLA ENGLISH CLASSICS 

The chimes were ringing the three-quarters past 
eleven at that moment. 

" Forgive me if I am not justified in what I ask," 
said Scrooge, looking intently at the Spirit's robe, "but 
I see something strange, and not belonging to yourself, 
protruding from your skirts. Is it a foot or a claw?" 

"It might be a claw, for the flesh there is upon it, ' ' 
was the Spirit's sorrowful reply. "Look here/" 

From the folding of its robe it brought two children ; 
wretched, abject, frightful, hideous, miserable. They 
knelt down at its feet and clung upon the outside of its 
garment. 

"Oh, man! Look here! Look, look, down here!" 
exclaimed the Ghost. 

ir rhey were a boy and girl. Yellow, meagre, ragged, 
scowling, wolfish; but prostrate, too, in their humility. 
Where graceful youth should have filled their features- 
out, and touched them with its freshest tints, a stale ana 
shrivelled hand, like that of age, had pinched, and 
twisted them and pulled them into shreds. Where angels 
might have sat enthroned, devils lurked and glared out 
menacing. No change, no degradation, no perversion of 
humanity, in any grade, through all the mysteries of 
wonderful creation, has monsters half so horrible and 
dread. 

Scrooge started back, appalled. Having them shown 
to him in this way, he tried to say they were fine chil- 
dren, but the words choked themselves, rather than be 
parties to a lie of such enormous magnitude. 

"Spirit! Are they yours?" Scrooge could say no 
more. 

"They are Man's," said the Spirit, looking down 
upon them. "And they cling to me, appealing from 
their fathers. This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. 55 
Beware of them both, and all of their degree, but most 
of all beware this boy, for on his brow I see that written 
which is doom, unless the writing be erased. Deny it ! " 
cried the Spirit, stretching out its hands toward the city. 



A CHRISTMAS CAROL 77 

' ' Slander those who tell it ye ! Admit it for your fac- 
tious purposes, and make it worse ! And bide the end ! ' ' 

"Have they no refuge or resource?" cried Scrooge. 

"Are there no prisons?" said the Spirit, turning on 
him for the last time with his own words. "Are there 
no workhouses?" 

The bell struck Twelve. 

Scrooge looked about him for the Ghost, and saw it 
not. As the last stroke ceased to vibrate, he remembered 
the prediction of old Jacob Marley, and, lifting up his 
eyes, beheld a solemn Phantom, draped and hooded, 
coming, like a mist along the ground, towards him. 



STAVE FOUR 

THE LAST OF THE SPIRITS 

The Phantom slowly, gravely, silently, 1 approached. 
When it came near him, Scrooge bent down upon his 
knee ; for in the very air through which this Spirit 
moved it seemed to scatter gloom and mystery. 

It was shrouded in a deep black 2 garment, which con- 
cealed its head, its face, its form, and left nothing of 
it visible save one outstretched hand. But for this it 
would have been difficult to detach its figure from the 
night, and separate it from the darkness by which it was 
surrounded. 

He felt that it was tall and stately when it came 
beside him, and that its mysterious presence filled him 
with a solemn dread. He knew no more, for the Spirit 
neither spoke nor moved. 

k ' I am in the presence of the Ghost of Christmas Yet 
to Come?" said Scrooge. 

The Spirit answered not, but pointed onward with 
its hand. 

' ' You are about to show me shadows of the things » 
that have not happened, but will happen in the time 
before us," Scrooge pursued. "Is that so, Spirit?'"'' 



78 LOYOLA ENGLISH CLASSICS 

The upper portion of the garment was contracted for 
an instant in its folds, 1 as if the Spirit had inclined its 
head. That was the only answer he received. 

Although well used to ghostly company by this time, 
Scrooge feared the silent shape so much that his legs 
trembled beneath him, and he found that he could hardly 
stand when he prepared to follow it. The Spirit paused 
a moment, as observing his condition, and giving him 
time to recover. 

But Scrooge was all the worse for this. It thrilled 
him with a vague uncertain horror, to know that, behind 
the dusky shroud, there were ghostly eyes intently fixed 
upon him, while he, though he stretched his own to the 
utmost, could see nothing but a spectral hand and one 
great heap of black. 2 

"Ghost of the Future!'' he exclaimed, "I fear you 
more than any spectre I have seen. But as I know your 
purpose is to do me good, and as I hope to live to be 
another man from what I was, I am prepared to bear 
you company, and do it with a thankful heart. Will you 
not speak to me ? ' ' 

It gave him no reply. The hand was pointed straight 
before them. 

' ' Lead on ! ' ' said Scrooge,—' ' lead on ! The night is 
waning fast, and it is precious time to me, I know. Lead 
on, Spirit!" 3 

The Phantom moved away as it had come towards 
him. Scrooge followed in the shadow of its dress, which 
bore him up, he thought, and carried him along. 4 

They scarcely seemed to enter the City ; for the City 
rather seemed to spring up about them, and encompass 
them of its own act, But there they were, in the heart 
of it; on 'Change, amongst the merchants; who hurried 
up and down, and chinked the money in their pockets, 
and conversed in groups, and looked at their watches, 
and trifled thoughtfully with their great gold seals, and 
so forth, as Scrooge had seen them often. 

The Spirit stopped beside one little knot of business 



A CHRISTMAS CAROL 79 

men. Observing that the hand was pointed to them, 
Scrooge advanced to listen to their talk. 

"No," said a great fat man with a monstrous chin, 
' ' T don 't know much about it either way. I only know 
he's dead. 

1 k When did he die ? ' ' inquired another. 

"Last night, I believe." 

"Why, what was the matter with him?" asked a 
third, taking a vast quantity of snuff out of a very large 
snuff-box. ' ' I thought he 'd never die. ' ' 

' ' God knows, ' ' said the first, with a yawn. 

"What has he done with his money?" asked a red- 
faced gentleman with a pendulous excrescence on the end 
of his nose, that shook like the gills of a turkey-cock. 

"I haven't heard," said the man with the large chin, 
yawning again. ' ' Left it to his company, perhaps. He 
hasn't left it to me. That's all I know." 

This pleasantry was received with a general laugh. 

"It's likely to be a very cheap funeral," said the 
same speaker; "for, upon my life, I don't know of any- 
body to go to it. Suppose we make up a party, and vol- 
unteer V' 1 

"I don't mind going if a lunch is provided," ob- 
served the gentleman with the excresenee on his nose. 
k k But I must be fed, if I make one. ' ' 

Another laugh. 2 

"Well, I am the most disinterested among you, after 
all," said the first speaker, "for I never wear black 
gloves, and I never eat lunch. But I'll offer to go, if 
anybody else will. When I come to think of it, I 'm not 
at all sure that I wasn 't his most particular friend ; for 
we used to stop and speak whenever we met. By-by!" 

Speakers and listeners strolled away, and mixed with 
other groups. Scrooge knew the men, and looked 
towards the Spirit for an explanation. 

The Phantom glided into a street. Its finger pointed 
to two persons meeting. Scrooge listened again, think- 
ing that the explanation might lie here. 



80 LOYOLA ENGLISH CLASSICS 

He knew these men, also, perfectly. They were men 
of business ; very wealthy, and of great importance. He 
had made a point always of standing well in their 
esteem in a business point of view, that is ; strictly in a 
business point of view. 

' ' How are you ? ' ' said one. 

4 * How are you ? ' ' returned the other. 

"Well!" said the first. "Old Scratch 1 has got his 
own at last, hey!" 

"So I am told." returned the second. "Cold, isn't 
it?" 

"Seasonable for Christmas time. You're not a 
skater, I suppose?" 

"No. No. Something else to think of. Good 



morning: 



Not another word. That was their meeting, their 
conversation, and their parting. 

Scrooge was at first inclined to be surprised that the 
Spirit should attach importance to conversations appar- 
ently so trivial ; but feeling assured that they must have 
some hidden purpose, he set himself to consider what it 
was likely to be. They could scarcely be supposed to 
have any bearing on the death of Jacob, his old partner, 
for that was Past, and this Ghost's province was the 
Future. Nor could he think of any one immediately 
connected with himself, to Avhom he could apply them. 
But nothing doubting that, to whomsoever they applied, 
they had some latent moral for his own improvement, 
he resolved to treasure up every word he heard, and 
everything he saw; and especially to observe the shadow 
of himself when it appeared. For he had an expectation 
that the conduct of his future self would give him the 
clew he missed, and would render the solution of these 
riddles easy. 

He looked about in that very place for his own 
image ; but another man stood in his accustomed corner, 
and though the clock pointed to his usual time of day 
for being there, he saw no likeness of himself among the 



A CHRISTMAS CAROL 81 

multitudes that poured in through the Porch. It gave 
him little surprise, however, for he had been revolving 
in his mind a change of life, and thought and hoped he 
saw his new-born resolutions carried out in this. 

Quiet and dark, beside him stood the Phantom, with 
its outstretched hand. When he roused himself from his 
thoughtful quest, he fancied, from the turn of the hand 
and its situation in reference to himself, that the Unseen 
Eyes were looking at him keenly. It made him shudder, 
and feel very cold. 

They left the busy scene, and went into an obscure 
part of the town, where Scrooge had never penetrated 
before, although he recognized its situation, and its bad 
repute. The ways were foul and narrow; the shops 
and houses wretched ; the people half naked, drunken, 
slipshod, ugly. Alleys and archways, like so many cess- 
pools, disgorged their offences of smell, and dirt, and 
life, upon the straggling streets : and the whole quarter 
reeked with crime, with filth and misery. 

Far in this den of infamous resort, there was a low- 
browed, beetling shop, below a penthouse 1 roof, where 
iron, old rags, bottles, bones, and greasy offal were 
bought. Upon this floor within were piled up heaps of 
rusty keys, nails, chains, hinges, files, scales, weights, and 
refuse iron of all kinds. Secrets that few would like to 
scrutinize were bred and hidden in mountains of 
unseemly rags, masses of corrupted fat, and sepulchres 
of bones. 2 Sitting in among the wares he dealt in, by a 
charcoal stove, made of old bricks, was a gray-haired 
rascal, nearly seventy years of age; who had screened 
himself from the cold air without by a frowzy curtaining 
of miscellaneous tatters, hung upon a line, and smoked 
his pipe in all the luxury of calm retirement. 

Scrooge and the Phantom came into the presence of 
this man, just as a woman with a heavy bundle slunk into 
the shop. But she had scarcely entered, when another 
woman, similarly laden, came in too ; and she was closely 
followed by a man in faded black, who was no less 



82 LOYOLA ENGLISH CLASSICS 

startled by the sight of them than they had been upon 
the recognition of each other. After a short period of 
blank astonishment, in which the old man with the pipe 
had joined them, they all three burst into a laugh. 

"Let the charwoman 1 alone to be the first!" cried she 
who had entered first. "Let the laundress alone to be 
the second ; and let the undertaker 's man alone to be the 
third. Look here, old Joe, here's a chance! If we 
haven't all three met here without meaning it!" 

' ' You couldn 't have met in a better place, ' ' said old 
Joe, removing his pipe from his mouth. ' ' Come into the 
parlor. You were made free of it long ago, you know; 
and the other two an't strangers. Stop till I shut the 
door of the shop. Ah! How it skreeks. There an't 
such a rusty bit of metal in the place as its own hinges, 
I believe; and I'm sure there's no such old bones here 
as mine. Ha, ha ! We 're all suitable to our calling, 
we're well matched. Come into the parlor. Come into 
the parlor. 

The parlor was the space behind the screen of rags. 
The old man raked the fire together with an old stair-rod, 
and having trimmed his smoky lamp (for it was night) 
with the stem of his pipe, put it in his mouth again. 

While he did this, the woman who had already spoken 
threw her bundle on the floor, and sat down in a flaunt- 
ing manner on a stool ; crossing her elbows on her knees, 
and looking with a bold defiance at the other two. 

"What odds, then? What odds, Mrs. Dilber?" said 
the woman. "Every person has a right to take care of 
themselves. He always did ! ' ' 

1 ' That 's true, indeed ! ' ' said the laundress. ' ' No man 
more so. " 

"Why, then, don't stand staring as if you was afraid, 
woman! Who's the wiser? We're not going to pick 
holes in each other 's coats, I suppose ? ' ' 

"No, indeed!" said Mrs. Dilber and the man to- 
gether. ' ' We should hope not. ' ' 

"Very well, then!" cried the woman. "That's 



A CHRISTMAS CAROL 83 

enough. Who's the worse for the loss of a few things 
like these? Not a dead man, I suppose?" 

- k No, indeed, ' ' said Mrs. Dilber, laughing. 

"If he wanted to keep 'em after he was dead, a 
wicked old screw, ' ' pursued the woman, ' ' why wasn 't he 
natural in his lifetime? If he had been he'd have had 
somebody to look after him when he was struck with 
Death, instead of lying gasping out his last there, alone 
by himself." 1 

"It's the truest word that ever was spoke," said Mrs. 
Dilber. ' k It 's a judgment on him. ' ' 

"I wish it was a little heavier judgment," replied the 
woman ; ' ' and it should have been, you may depend upon 
it, if I could have laid my hands on anything else. Open 
that bundle, old Joe, and let me know the value of it. 
Speak out plain. I'm not afraid to be the first, nor 
afraid for them to see it. We knew pretty well that we 
were helping ourselves, before we met here, I believe. 
It's no sin. Open the bundle, Joe." 

But the gallantry of her friends would not allow ot 
this; and the man in faded black, mounting the breach 
first, produced Ms plunder. It was not extensive. A 
seal or two, a pencil-case, a pair of sleeve-buttons, and 
a brooch of no great value, were all. They were severally 
examined and appraised by old Joe, who chalked the 
sums he was disposed to give for each upon the wall, and 
added them up into a total when he found that there 
was nothing more to come. 

"That's your account," said Joe, "and I wouldn't 
give another sixpence, if I was to be boiled for not doing 
it. Who's next?" 

Mrs. Dilber was next. Sheets and towels, a little 
wearing apparel, two old-fashioned silver teaspoons, a 
pair of sugar tongs, and a few boots. Her account was 
stated on the wall in the same manner. 

"I always give too much to ladies. It's a weakness 
of mine, and that's the way I ruin myself," said old 
Joe. ' ' That 's your account. If you asked me for another 



84 LOYOLA ENGLISH CLASSICS 

penny, and made it an open question, I'd repent of being 
so liberal, and knock off half a crown. 

"And now undo my bundle,, Joe," said the first 
woman. 

Joe went down on his knees for the greater con- 
venience of opening it, and, having unfastened a great 
many knots, dragged out a large, heavy roll of some dark 
stuff. 

"What do you call this?" said Joe. "Bed cur- 
tains?" 

"Ah!" returned the woman, laughing and leaning 
forward on her crossed arms. ''Bed curtains!" 

"You don't mean to say you took 'em down, rings 
and all, with him lying there ? ' ' said Joe. 

"Yes, I do," replied the woman. "Why not?" 

"You were born to make your fortune,"' said Joe, 
''and you'll certainly do it.'' 1 

"I certainly shan't hold my hand, when I can get 
anything in it by reaching it out, for the sake of such a 
man as He was, I promise you, Joe," returned the 
woman coolly. "Don't drop that oil upon the blankets 
now. ' ' 

' ' His blankets ? ' ' asked Joe. 

" Whose else do you think?" replied the woman. 

''He isn't likely to take cold without 'em, I dare 
say." - 

"I hope he didn't die of anything catching? Eh? 7 " 
said old Joe, stopping in his w^ork, and looking up. 

"Don't be afraid of that," returned the woman. "I 
an't so fond of his company that I'd loiter about him 
for such things, if he did. Ah ! You may look through 
that shirt till your eyes ache; but you w^on't find a hole 
in it, or a threadbare place. It's the best he had, and 
a fine one, too. They'd have wasted it, if it hadn't been 
for me." 

"What do you call wasting of it?" asked old Joe. 

' ' Putting it on him to be buried in, to be sure, ' ' re- 
plied the woman, with a laugh. "Somebody was fool 



A CHRISTMAS CAROL 85 

enough to do it, but I took it off again. If calico an't 
good enough for such a purpose, it isn't good enough for 
anything. It'squite as becoming to the body. He can't 
look uglier than he did in that one. ' ' 

Scrooge listened to this dialogue in horror. As they 
sat grouped about their spoil, in the scanty light afforded 
by the old man's lamp, he viewed them with a detesta- 
tion and disgust which could hardly have been greater 
though they had been obscene demons, marketing the 
corpse itself. 

'•Ha, ha!" laughed the same woman, when old Joe, 
producing a flannel bag with money in it, told out their 
several gains upon the ground. "This is the end of it, 
you see ! He frightened every one away from him when 
he was alive, to profit us when he was dead! Ha, ha. 
ha!" 1 

"Spirit!" said Scrooge, shuddering from head to 
foot. ' ' I see, I see. The case of this unhappy man might 
be my own. My life tends that way now. Merciful 
Heaven, what is this?" 

He recoiled in terror, for the scene had changed, and 
now he almost touched a bed— a bare, uncurtained bed, 
on which, beneath a ragged sheet, there lay a something 
covered up, which, though it was dumb, announced itself 
in a wful language, 

The room was very dark, too dark to be observed 
with any accuracy, though Scrooge glanced around it 
in obedience to a secret impulse, anxious to know what 
kind of room it was. A pale light, rising in the outer 
air, fell straight upon the bed ; and on it, plundered and 
bereft, un watched, unwept, uncared for, was the body 
of this man. 

Scrooge glanced towards the Phantom. Its steady 
hand was pointed to the head. The cover was so care- 
lesslv adjusted that the slightest raising of it, the motion 
of a finger upon Scrooge's part, would have disclosed 
the face. He thought of it, felt how easy it would be to 



86 LOYOLA ENGLISH CLASSICS 

do, and longed to do it, but had no more power to with- 
draw the veil than to dismiss the spectre at his side. 1 

Oh, cold, cold, rigid, dreadful Death, set up thine 
altar here, and dress it with such terrors as thou hast at 
tlry command; for this is thy dominion! But of the 
loved, revered, and honored head, thou canst not turn 
one hair to thy dread purposes, or make one feature 
odious. It is not that the hand is heavy, and will fall 
down when released; it is not that the heart and pulse 
are still: but that the hand was open, generous, and 
true ; the heart brave, warm, and tender ; and the pulse 
a man's. Strike, Shadow, strike! And see his good 
deeds springing from the wound, to sow the world with 
life immortal ! 2 

No voice pronounced these words in Scrooge's ears, 
and yet he heard them when he looked upon the bed. 
He thought, if this man could be raised up now, what 
would be his foremost thoughts ? Avarice, hard-dealing, 
griping cares? They have brought him to a rich end, 
truly! 

He lay, in the dark, empty house, with not a man, 
a woman, or a child to say he was kind to me in this 
or that, and f©r the memory of one kind word I will be 
kind to him. A cat was tearing at the door, and there 
was a sound of gnawing rats beneath the hearthstone. 
What they wanted in the room of death, and why they 
were so restless and disturbed, Scrooge did not dare to 
think. 

"Spirit!" he said, "this is a fearful place. In leav- 
ing it, I shall not leave its lesson, trust me. Let us go ! ' ' 

Still the Ghost pointed with an unmoved finger to tne 
head. 

"I understand you,' 7 Scrooge returned, "and I 
would do it, if I could. But I have not the power, Spirit. 
I have not the power. ' ' 

Again it seemed to look upon him. 

' ' If there is any person in the town who feels emotion 



A CHRISTMAS CAROL 87 

caused by this man's death," said Scrooge, quite agon- 
ized, "show that person to me, Spirit, I beseech you!" 

The Phantom spread its dark robe before him for 
a moment, like a wing; and withdrawing it, revealed a 
room by daylight, where a mother and her children were. 

She was expecting some one, and with anxious eager- 
ness : for she walked up and down the room ; ; started at 
every sound ; looked out from the window ; glanced at 
the clock; tried, but in vain, to work with her needle; 
and could hardly bear the voices of her children in their 
play. 1 

At length the long-expected knock was heard. She 
hurried to the door, and met her husband ; a man whose 
face was careworn and depressed, though he was young. 
There was a remarkable expression in it now ; a kind of 
serious delight of which he felt ashamed, and which he 
struggled to repress. 

He sat down to the dinner that had been hoarding 
for him by the fire ; and when she asked him faintly 
what news (which was not until after a long silence), 
he appeared embarrassed how to answer. 

"Is it good, ' ' she said, * ' or bad ? ' ' — to help him. 

"Bad," he answered. 

"We are quite ruined?" 

k ' No. There is hope yet, Caroline. ' ' 

"If he relents," she said, amazed, "there is! Noth- 
ing is past hope, if such a miracle has happened. ' ' 

"He is past relenting," said her husband. "He is 
dead." 

She was a mild and patient creature, if her face 
spoke truth; but she was thankful in her soul to hear 
it, and she said so, with clasped hands. She prayed 
forgiveness the next moment, and was sorry; but the 
first was the emotion of her heart. 

"What a half -drunken woman whom I told you of 
last night said to me, when I tried to see him and obtain 
a week's delay, and what I thought was a mere excuse 



88 LOYOLA ENGLISH CLASSICS 

to avoid me turns out to have been quite true. He was 
not only very ill, but dying, then." 

••To whom will our debt be transferred?" 1 

"I don't know. But before that time we shall be 
ready with the money ; and even though we were not, It 
would be bad fortune indeed to find so merciless a 
creditor in his successor. We may sleep tonight with 
light hearts, Caroline!" 

Yes. Soften it as they would, their hearts were 
lighter. The children's faces, hushed and clustered 
round to hear what they so little understood, were 
brighter: and it was a happier house for this man's 
death! The only emotion that the Ghost could show 
him, caused by the event, was one of pleasure. 

Let me see some tenderness connected with a death," 
said Scrooge, "or that dark chamber, Spirit, Avhich we 
left just now will be forever present to me." 

The Ghost conducted him through several streets 
familiar to his feet; and, as they went along, Scrooge 
looked here and there to find himself, but nowhere was 
he to be seen. They entered poor Bob Cratchit's house — 
the dwelling he had visited before — and found the 
mother and the children seated round the fire. 

Quiet. Very quiet. The noisy little Cratchits were 
as still as statues in one corner, and sat looking up at 
Peter, who had a book before him. The mother and 
her daughters were engaged in sewing. But surely they 
were very quiet. 2 

" 'And he took a child, and set him in the midst of 
them. ' 

Where had Scrooge heard those words? He had not 
dreamed them. The boy must have read them out as 
he and the Spirit crossed the threshold. Why did he not 
go on? 

The mother laid her work upon the table, and put 
hej' hand up to her face. 

1 l The color hurts my eyes, ' ' she said. 

The color ? Ah, poor Tiny Tim ! 



A CHRISTMAS CAROL 



89 



"They're better now again," said Oatchit's wife. 
"It makes them weak by candlelight; and I wouldn't 
show weak eyes to your father when he comes home,, for 
the world. It must be near his time. ' ' 

"Past it, rather," Peter answered, shutting up his 
book. "But I think he has walked a little slower than 
he used, these few last evenings, mother. ' ' 

They were very quiet again. At last she said, and in 
a steady, cheerful voice, that only faltered once : 

"I have known him walk with— I have known him 
walk with Tiny Tim upon his shoulders very fast in- 
deed." 

' ' And so have I, " cried Peter. ' k Often. 

"And so have I," exclaimed another. So had all. 

"But he was very light to carry," she resumed, in- 
tent upon her work, "and his father loved him so that it 
was no trouble— no trouble. And there is your father 
at the door ! ' ' 

She hurried out to meet him; and little Bob in his 
comforter— he had need of it, poor fellow— came in. 
His tea was ready for him on the hob, and they all tried 
who should help him to it most. Then the two young 
Cratchits got upon his knees, and laid, each child, a little 
cheek against his face, as if they said. "Don't mind it, 
father. Don 't be grieved ! ,n 

Bob was very cheerful with them, and spoke pleas- 
antly to all the family. He looked at the work upon 
the table, and praised the industry and speed of Mrs. 
Cratchit and the girls. They would be done long before 
Sunday, he said. 

' ' Sunday ! You went to-day, then, Robert ? ' ' said his 

wife. 

^Yes, my dear," returned Bob. kk I wish you could 
have gone. It would have done you good to see how 
green a place it is. But you'll see it often. I promised 
him that I would walk there on a Sunday. My little, 
little child ! ' ' cried Bob. ' ' My little child ! ' ' 

He broke down all at once. He couldn't help it. If 



90 LOYOLA ENGLISH CLASSICS 

he could have helped it, he and his child would have 
been farther apart, perhaps, than they were. 

He left the room, and went upstairs into the room 
above, which was lighted cheerfully, and hung with 
Christmas. There was a chair set close beside the child, 
and there were signs of some one having been there 
lately. Poor Bob sat down in it, and when he had 
thought a little and composed himself, he kissed the little 
face. 1 He was reconciled to what had happened, and 
went down again quite happy. 

They drew about the fire, and talked; the girls ana 
mother working still. Bob told them of the extra- 
ordinary kindness of Mr. Scrooge's nephew, whom he 
had scarcely seen but once, and who, meeting him in the 
street that day, and seeing that he looked a little — "just 
a little down, you know." said Bob, "for he is the 
pleasantest-spoken gentleman you ever heard, I told him. 
'I am heartily sorry for it, Air. Cratchit,' he said, 'and 
heartily sorry for your good wife. ' By the bye, how he 
ever knew that, I don't know." 

' * Knew what, my dear ? ' ' 

"Why, that you were a good wife," replied Bob. 

"Everybody knows that," said Peter. 

"Very well observed, my boy!" cried Bob. "I hope 
they do. 'Heartily sorry,' he said, 'for your good wife. 
If I can be of service to you in any way, ' he said, giving 
me his card, 'that's where I live. Pray come to me.' 
Now it wasn't," cried Bob, "for the sake of anything he 
might be able to do for us, so much as for his kind way, 
that this was quite delightful. It really seemed as if he 
had known our Tiny Tim, and felt with us. ' ' 

"I'm sure he's a good soul!" said Mrs. Cratchit. 

" Von would be sure of it, dear," returned Bob, "if 
you saw and spoke to him. I shouldn't be at all sur- 
prised — mark what I say ! — if he got Peter a better 
situation. ' ' 

' ' Only hear that, Peter, ' ' said Mrs. Cratchit. 

"And then," cried one of the girls, "Peter will be 



A CHRISTMAS CAROL 91 

keeping company with some one, and setting up for 
himself." 

' ' Get along, with you ! ' ' retorted Peter, grinning. 

"It's just as likely as not," said Bob, "one of these 
days; though there's plenty of time for that, my dear. 
But, however and whenever we part from one another, 
I am sure we shall none of us forget poor Tiny Tim — 
shall we? — or this first parting that there was among 
us?" 

"Never, father!" cried they all. 

"And I know," said Bob — "I know, my dears, that 
when we recollect how patient and how mild he was, 
although he was a little, little child, we shall not quarrel 
easily among ourselves, and forget poor Tiny Tim in 
doing it." 

"No, never, father!" they all cried again. 

"I am very happy," said little Bob — -"I am very 
happy ! ' ' 

Airs. Cratchit kissed him, his daughters kissed him, 
the two young Oat chits kissed him, and Peter and 
himself shook hands. Spirit of Tiny Tim, thy childish 
essence was from God I 1 

"Spectre," said Scrooge, "something informs me 
that our parting moment is at hand. I know it, but I 
know not how. Tell me what man that was whom we 
saw lying dead. ' ' 

The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come conveyed him, 
as before — though at a different time, he thought; 
indeed, there seemed no order in these latter visions, 
save that they were in the Future— into the resorts of 
business men, but showed him not himself. Indeed, the 
Spirit did not stay for anything, but went straight on, 
as to the end just now desired, until besought by Scrooge 
to tarry for a moment. 

"This court," said Scrooge, "through which we 
hurry now is where my place of occupation is, and has 
been for a length of time. I see the house. Let me 
behold what I shall be, in days to come ! ' ' 



92 LOYOLA ENGLISH CLASSICS 

The Spirit stopped ; the hand 1 was pointed elsewhere. 

"The house is yonder," Scrooge exclaimed. "Why 
do yon point away?" 

The inexorable finger underwent no change. 

Scrooge hastened to the window of his office, and 
looked in. It was an office still, but not his.- The furni- 
ture was not the same, and the figure in the chair was 
not himself. The Phantom pointed as before. 

He joined it once again, and, wondering why and 
whither he had gone, accompanied it until they reached 
an iron gate. He paused to look round before entering. 

A churchyard. Here, then, the wretched man whose 
name he had now to learn lay underneath the ground. 
It was a worthy place. Walled in by houses; overrun 
by grass and weeds, the growth of A T egetatioirs death, 
not life ; choked up with too much burying ; fat witli 
repleted appetite. A worthy place! 

The Spirit stood among the graves, and pointed 
down to One. He advanced towards it, trembling. The 
Phantom was exactly as it had been, but he dreaded that 
he saw new meaning in its solemn shape. 

"Before I draw nearer to that stone to which you 
point," said Scrooge, "answer me one question. Are 
these the shadows of the things that Will be, or are they 
shadows of the things that May be, only?" 

Still the Ghost pointed downward to the grave by 
which it stood. 

"Men's courses will foreshadow certain ends, to 
which, if persevered in, they must lead," said Scrooge. 
"But if the courses be departed from, the ends will 
change. Say it thus with what you show me!" 

The Spirit was immovable as ever. 

Scrooge crept towards it, trembling as he went ; and 
following the finger, read upon the stone of the neglected 
grave his own name, Ebexezer Scrooge. 3 

"Am I that man who lay upon the bed?" he cried, 
upon his knees. 

The finger pointed from the grave to him, and back 
again. 4 



A CHRISTMAS CAROL 93 

' ' No, Spirit ! Oh, no, no ! " 

The linger still was there. 

"Spirit!" he cried, tight clutching at its robe, "hear 
me ! I am not the man I was. I will not be the man I 
must have been but for this intercourse. Why show me 
this, if I am past all hope?" 

For the first time the hand appeared to shake. 

"Good Spirit," he pursued, as down upon the 
ground he fell before it, "your nature intercedes for 
me, and pities me. Assure me that I yet may change 
these shadows you have shown me, by an altered life!" 1 

The kind hand trembled. 

"I will honor Christmas in my heart, and try to keep 
it all the year. I will live in the Past, the Present and 
the Future. The Spirits of all Three shall strive within 
me. I will not shut out the lessons that they teach. Oh, 
tell me I may sponge away the writing on this stone ! ' 7 

In the agony he caught the spectral hand. It sought 
to free itself, but he was strong in the entreaty, and 
detained it, The Spirit, stronger yet. repulsed him. 2 

Holding up his hands in a' last prayer to have his 
fate reversed, he saw an alteration in the Phantom's 
hood and dress. It shrunk, collapsed, and dwindled 
down into a bedpost. 



STAVE FIVE 

THE END OF IT 

Yes and the bedpost Avas his own. The bed was his 
own, the room was his own. Best and happiest of all, 
the Time before him was his own. 3 to make amends in ! 

"I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Fut- 
ure!" 4 Scrooge repeated, as he scrambled out of bed. 
"The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. 
Jacob Marley! Heaven and the Christmas Time be 
praised for this ! I say it on my knees, old Jacob; on my 
knees ! ' ' 5 



94 LOYOLA ENGLISH CLASSICS 

He was so fluttered and so glowing with his good 
intentions, that his broken voice would scarcely answer 
to his call. He had been sobbing violently in his con- 
flict with the Spirit, and his face was wet with tears. 

"They are not torn down," cried Scrooge, folding 
one of his bed curtains in his arms — ' ' they are not torn 
down, rings and all. They are here — I am here — the 
shadows of the things that would have been may be 
dispelled. They will be. I know they will ! ' n 

His hands were busy with his garments all this time; 
turning them inside out, putting them on upside down, 
tearing them, mislaying them, making them parties to 
every kind of extravagance. 

' ' I don 't know what to do ! " cried Scrooge, laughing 
and crying in the same breath, and making a perfect 
Laocooir of himself with his stockings. l ' I am as light 
as a feather, 1 am as happy as an angel, I am as merry 
as a schoolboy, I am as giddy as a drunken man. 3 A 
Merry Christmas to everybody! 4 A Happy New Year 
to all the world! Hallo here! Whoop ! Hallo!" 

He had frisked into the sitting-room, and was now 
standing there, perfectly winded. 

"There's the saucepan that the gruel was in!" cried 
Scrooge, starting off again, and going around the fire- 
place. "There's the door by which the Ghost of Jacob 
Marley entered! There's the corner where the Ghost 
of Christmas Present sat! There's the window where 
I saw the wandering Spirits! It's all right, it's all true, 
it all happened. Ha, ha, ha!" 

Really, for a man who had been out of practice for 
so many years, it was a splendid laugh, a most illustrious 
laugh. The father of a long, long line of brilliant 
laughs ! 

"I don't know what day of the month it is," said 
Scrooge. "I don't know how long I have been among 
the- Spirits. I don't know anything. I'm quite a baby. 
Never mind. I don't care. I'd rather be a baby. 
Hallo ! Whoop ! Hallo here ! ' ' 



A CHRISTMAS CAROL 95 

He was checked in his transports by the churches 
ringing out the lustiest peals he had ever heard. Clash, 
clash, hammer; ding, dong, bell! Bell, dong, ding; 
hammer, clang, ' clash ! Oh, glorious, glorious! 

Running to the window, he opened it, and put out 
his head. No fog, no mist; 1 clear, bright, jovial, stir- 
ring, cold ; cold, piping for the blood to dance to ; golden 
sunlight ; heavenly sky ; sweet fresh air ; merry bells. 
Oh, glorious! Glorious! 

''What's to-day ?" cried Scrooge, calling downward 
to a boy in Sunday clothes, who perhaps had loitered in 
to look about him. 

" Eh?" returned the boy with all his might of 
wonder. 

' ' What 's to-day, my fine fellow ? ' ' said Scrooge. 

"To-day!" replied the boy. "Why, Christmas 
Day." 

"It's Christmas Day!" said Scrooge to himself. "I 
haven't missed it, The Spirits have done it all in one 
night. They can do anything they like. Of course they 
can. Of course they can. Hallo my fine fellow ! ' ' 

' ' Hallo ! ' ' returned the boy. 

"Do you know the poulterer's in the next street but 
one, at the corner?" Scrooge inquired. 

"I should hope I did," replied the lad. 

' ' An intelligent boy ! ' ' said Scrooge. ' ' A remarkable 
boy! Do you know whether they've sold the prize 
Turkey that was hanging up there ? — not the little prize 
Turkey, the big one?" 

"What, the one as big as me?" returned the boy. 

"What a delightful boy!" said Scrooge. "It's a 
pleasure to talk to him. Yes, my buck!" 

"It's hanging there now," replied the boy. 

"Is it?" said Scrooge. "Go and buy it." 

1 1 Walk-ER ! " 2 exclaimed the boy. 

"No, no," said Scrooge, "I am in earnest. Go and 
buy it, tell 'em to bring it here, that I may give them 
the directions where to take it. Come back with the 



96 v LOYOLA ENGLISH CLASSICS 

man, and I '11 give you a shilling. Come back with him 
in less than five minutes, and 111 give you half a 
erown ! ' ' 

The boy was off like a shot. He must have had a 
steady hand at a trigger who could have got off a shot 
half so fast. 

''I'll send it to Bob Crat chit's, " whispered Scrooge, 
rubbing his hands, and splitting with a laugh. "He 
shan't know who sends it. It's twice the size of Tiny 
Tim. Joe Miller 1 never made such a joke as sending it 
to Bob's will be!" 

The hand in which he wrote the address was not a 
steady one. but write it he did, somehow, and went 
downstairs to open the street door, ready for the coming 
of the poulterer's man. As he stood there, waiting ins 
arrival, the knocker 1 ' caught his eye. 

' ' I shall love it as long as I live ! ' ' cried Scrooge, 
patting it with his hand. "I scarcely ever looked at it 
before. What an honest expression it has in his face ! 
It's a wonderful knocker! — Here's the Turkey. Hallo! 
"Whoop! How are you? Merry Christmas!" 

It was a Turkey. He never could have stood upon 
his legs, that bird. He would have snapped 'em short 
off in a minute, like sticks of sealing-wax. 3 

"Why, it's impossible to carry that to Camden 
Town," said Scrooge. "'You must have a eab." 

The chuckle with which he said this, and the chuckle 
with which he paid for the Turkey, and the chuckle with 
which he paid for the cab, and the chuckle with which 
he recompensed the boy. were only to be exceeded by the 
chuckle with which he sat down breathless in his chair 
again, and chuckled 4 till he cried. 

Shaving was not an easy task, for his hand continued 
to shake very much ; and shaving requires attention, 
even when you don't dance while you are at it. But if 
he had cut the end of his nose off, he would have put a 
piece of sticking plaster over it, and been quite satisfied. 

He dressed himself. ' ' all in his best, ' ' and at last got 



A CHRISTMAS CAROL 97 

out into the streets. The people were by this time 
pouring forth, as he had seen them with the Ghost of 
Christmas Present ; and walking with his hands behind 
him, Scrooge regarded every one with a delightful smile. 
He looked so irresistibly pleasant, in a word, that three 
or four good-humored fellows said, ' ' Good morning, sir ! • 
A Merry Christmas to you ! "* And Scrooge said often 
afterwards, that of all the blithe sounds he had ever 
heard, those were the blithest in his ears. 

He had not gone far, when, coming on towards him 
he behold the portly gentleman who had walked into his 
counting-house the day before, and said, " Scrooge and 
Marley 's, I believe ? ' ' It sent a pang across his heart to 
think how this old gentleman would look upon him when 
they met; but he knew what path lay straight before 
him, and he took it. 

"My dear sir," said Scrooge, quickening his pace, 
and taking the old gentleman by both hands, "how do 
you do? I hope you succeeded yesterday. It was very 
kind of you. A Merry Chistmas to you sir." 

"Mr. Scrooge?" 

' ' Yes, ' ' said Scrooge. ' ' That is my name, and I fear 
it may not be pleasant to you. Allow me to ask your 
pardon. And will you have the goodness"—. Here 
Scrooge whispered in his ear. 2 

"Lord bless me!" cried the gentleman as if his 
breath were taken away. "My dear Mr. Scrooge, are 
you serious?" 

' ' If you please, ' ' said Scrooge. ' ' Not a farthing less. 
A greatmany back-payments 3 are included in it, I assure 
you. Will you do me that favor?" 

"My dear sir," said the other, shaking hands with 
him, "I don't know what to say to such munifi — " 

"Don't say anything, please," 4 retorted Scrooge. 
"Come and see me. Will you come and see me?" 

' ' I will ! ' ' cried the old gentleman. And it was clear 
he meant to do it. 



98 LOYOLA ENGLISH CLASSICS 

"Thankee/' said Scrooge. "I am much obliged to 
you. I thank you fifty times. Bless you!' ' 

He went to church, and walked about the streets, and 
watched the people hurrying to and fro, and patted the 
children on the head, and questioned beggars, and looked 
down into the kitchens of houses, and up to the 
windows ; and found that everything could yield him 
pleasure. He had never dreamed that any walk — that 
anything — could give him so much happiness. In the 
afternoon he turned his steps towards his nephew's 
house. 

He passed the door a dozen times before he had the 
courage to go up and knock. But he made a dash, and 
did it. 

"Is your master at home, my dear?" said Scrooge 
to the girl. Nice girl ! Very. 

"Yes. sir." 

' ' Where is he. my love ? ' ' said Scrooge. 

"He's in the dining-room, sir, along with mistress. 
I'll show you upstairs, if you please." 

"Thankee. He knows me," said Scrooge, with his 
hand already on the dining-room lock. ' ' I '11 go in here, 
my dear." 

He turned it gently, and sidled 1 his face in, round 
the door. They were looking at the table (which Avas 
spread out in great array) ; for these young house- 
keepers are always nervous on such points, and like to 
see that every tiling is right. 

"Fred! "'said Scrooge. 

Dear heart alive, how his niece by marriage started ! 
Scrooge had forgotten, for the moment, about her sitting 
in the corner with the footstool, or he wouldn't have 
done it, on any account. 

"Why, bless my soul!" cried Fred, "who's that?" 

"It's I. Your uncle Scrooge. I have come to din- 
ner. Will you let me in. Fred ? ' ' 2 

Let him in ! It is a mercy he didn 't shake his arm 
off. He was at home in five minutes. Nothing could 



A CHRISTMAS CAROL 99 

be heartier. His niece looked just the same. So did 
Topper when lie came. So did the plump sister, when 
she came. So did every one, when tliey came. Wonder- 
ful party, wonderful games, wonderful unanimity, won- 
der-ful happiness ! 

But he was early at the office next morning. Oh, he 
was early there! If he could only be there first, and 
catch Bob Cratchit coming late! That was the thing- 
he had set his heart upon. 1 

And he did it ; yes, he did ! The clock struck nine. 
No Bob. A quarter past. No Bob. He was full 
eighteen minutes and a half behind his time. Scrooge 
sat with his door wide open, that he might see him come 
into the tank. 

His hat was off before he opened the door; his com- 
forter, too. He was on his stool in a jiffy; driving 
away with his pen, as if he were trying to overtake nine 
o 'clock. 

"Hallo!" growled Scrooge, in his accustomed, voice 
as near as he could feign it. /'AYhat do you mean by 
coming here at this time of day?" 

"I am very sorry, sir," said Bob. ''I am behind 
my time." 

"You are?" repeated Scrooge. ''Yes. I think you 
are. Step this way, sir, if you please. 

"It's only once a year, sir," pleaded Bob, appearing 
from the tank. "It shall not be repeated. I was 
making rather merry yesterday, sir. ' ' 

"Now I'll tell you what, my friend," said Scrooge; 
"I am not going to stand this sort of thing any longer. 
And therefore," he continued, leaping from his stool, 
and giving Bob such a dig in the waistcoat that he stag- 
gered back into the tank again— "and therefore, I am 
about to raise your salary ! ' ' 

Bob trembled, and got a little nearer to the ruler. 
He had a momentary idea of knocking Scrooge down 
with it, holding him, and calling to the people m the 
court for help and a strait-waistcoat. 2 



100 LOYOLA ENGLISH CLASSICS 

' " A Merry Christmas, Bob ! ' ' said Scrooge, with an 
earnestness that could not be mistaken, as he clapped 
him on the back. "A merrier Christmas, Bob, my good 
fellow, than 1 have given you for many a year! I'll 
raise your salary, and endeavor to assist your struggling 
family, and we will discuss your affairs this very after- 
noon, over a Christmas bowl of smoking bishop, 1 Bob ! 
Make up the fires, and buy another coal-scuttle before 
you dot another i. Bob Cratehit ! ' ' 

Scrooge was better than his word.- He did it all, 
and infinitely more ; and to Tiny Tim, who did not die, 
he was a second father. He became as good a friend, as 
good a master, and as °-ood a man as the good old City 
knew, or any other good old city, town, or borough in 
the good old world. Some people laughed to see the 
alteration in him, but he let them laugh, and little 
heeded them; for he was wise enough to know that 
nothing ever happened on this globe, for good, at which 
some people did. not have their fill of laughter in the 
outset ; and knowing that such as these would be blind 
anyway, he thought it quite as well that they should 
wrinkle up their eyes in grins as have the malady in 
less attractive forms. His own heart laughed, and that 
was quite enough for him. 

He had no further intercourse with Spirits, but lived 
upon the Total Abstinence Principle ever afterwards; 
and it was always said of him. that he knew how to keep 
Christinas well, if any man alive possessed the knowl- 
edge. May that be truly said of us, and all of us! And 
so, as Tiny Tim observed. God bless Us. Every One! 1 



A CHRISTMAS CAROL 101 



OUTLINE 



Scrooge and Marley — pp. 15-17 
The fact of Marley's death— p. 15 
The character of Scrooge — pp. 16-17 
shown in his features — p. 16 
in relation to weather — p. 16 
in relation to other people — pp. 16-17 

Scrooge in his office — pp. 17-24 
Cold and foggy — p. 17 

The nephew— pp. 18-20 

Two portly gentlemen — pp. 20-22 
Colder and foggier— pp. 23-24 

The singing boy — p. 23 

The clerk— pp. 23-24 

Scrooge at home — pp. 24-34 

sees Marley's face on knocker — p. 25 
searches the house— p. 26 
hears bell ring— pp. 26-27 
hears noise of chains — p. 27 
encounters Marley's ghost — pp. 28-33 

ghost appears to Scrooge — p. 28 

addresses him— pp. 28-32 

warns him— pp. 32-33 

foretells coming of three spirits — p. 33 

ghost disappears — p. 33 
Scrooge retires — p. 34 

The First of the Three Spirits— pp. 34-53 
Scrooge awakes — p. 34 

clock strikes twelve — p. 35 
Scrooge alarmed — p; 35 
Scrooge lies awake — p. 35 
clock strikes ONE— p. 36 
"The Ghost of Christmas Past"— pp. 36-53 
appears to Scrooge — p. 36 
announces his mission — p. 37 



102 LOYOLA ENGLISH CLASSICS 

shows Scrooge incidents from the past — pp. 37-52 
Christmas on a country road — p. 38 
Christmas in a market town — p. 39 
Christmas in a school house — pp. 40-41 

Scrooge thinks of the singing boy — pp. 41-42 
Christmas and Scrooge's sister — pp. 42-43 

Scrooge is reminded of his nephew — p. 43 
Christmas in Fezziwig's shop — pp. 44-47 

Scrooge thinks of his clerk — p. 48 
Scrooge's love for a girl long ago — pp. 48-49 
affection displaced by love of gold — p. 49 
Scrooge begs to be left alone — p. 50 
ghost shows Scrooge one shadow more — pp. 50-52 
a happy Christmas family — -p. 51 
they talk about Scrooge — p. 52 
Scrooge affected — p. 52 

extinguishes the ghost — p. 53 
reels back to bed and sleep — p. 53 

The Second of the Three Spirits — pp. 53-77 
Scrooge awakes — p. 53 
Clock strikes One — p. 53 
Light shines brightly — p. 53 
Scrooge goes towards light — p. 54 

"The Ghost of Christmas Present" — pp. 55-77 
introduces himself — p. 55 
Scrooge bids the ghost lead on — p. 55 
Ghost shows Scrooge about the city — pp. 56-58 
jovial people — p. 56 
poulterers' shops — p. 57 
grocers' — p. 57 
crowds going to Church — p. 58 

the sprinkling from the torch — p. 59 
Ghost shows Scrooge outside the city — pp. 59-76 
Christmas in the clerk's home — pp. 60-66 
Mrs. Cratchit — p. 60 
Martha— p. 60 

The clerk and Tiny Tim— pp. 61-62 
The dinner— pp. 62-63 



A CHRISTMAS CAROL 103 

Scrooge fears for Tiny Tim — p. 64 
The Cratchits drink to Scrooge's health — p. 65 
Scrooge keeps eye on Tiny Tim — p. 66 
Christmas in a miner's home — pp. 67-68 
Christmas at sea — pp. 68-69 
in a lighthouse — p. 68 
on shipboard — p. 69 
Christmas in home of Scrooge's nephew — pp. 69-75 
nephew and friends discuss Scrooge — pp- 69-71 
after the dinner — p. 71 
music — p. 72 
games — p. 72 

blindman's buff — p. 72 
game of yes-and-no — p. 74 

the answer is "Scrooge" — p. 74 
Scrooge becomes gay — p. 75 
Ghost takes Scrooge away to further travels — p. 75 
Ghost grows gray and old- — p. 76 
shows Scrooge two children, Ignorance and Want — p. 76 
Scrooge grows pitiful — p. 77 

Ghost llings his former words back at him — p. 77 
The clock strikes twelve — p. 77 ' 
The Third Phantom approaches — p. 77 

The Third of the Three Spirits— pp. 77-93 
"The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come— pp. 77-93 
approaches Scrooge — p. 77 
introduces himself — p. 77 
Scrooge bids the ghost lead on — p. 78 

Ghost shows Scrooge various groups of people — pp. 78-95 
merchants on 'Change — p. 79 

discuss a man's death and his money — p. 79 
two old acquaintances of Scrooge — p. 80 
their conversation — p. 80 

Scrooge ponders what it all means — p. 80 
sees a man not himself in his own accustomed corner 
—p. 80 
the persons in the junk shop — p. 81 
old Joe— pp. 81-82 
the charwoman — p. 82 
the laundress — p. 82 
the undertaker — p. 83 



104 LOYOLA ENGLISH CLASSICS 

the undertaker's bundle, sleeve-buttons, etc. — pp. 
83-84 
the laundress' bundle, sheets, towels, etc. — p. 83 
the charwoman's bundle — p. 84 
bed curtains, blankets, shirt — p. 84 
Scrooge's horror — p. 85 
Ghost shows Scrooge a covered corpse — p. 85 
Scrooge grows very thoughtful — p. 86 
Begs to see some emotion caused by this man's death — 
p. 86 
Ghost shows Scrooge a husband, wife and children — p. 87 
their pleasure at the death — p. 88 

Scrooge begs to see some tenderness connected with 
a death— p. 88 
Ghost conducts Scrooge to Cratcliits' house — p. 88 
the death of Tiny Tim- p. 89 
the kindness of Scrooge's nephew — p. 90 

Scrooge begs to know the man who was lying dead — 
p. 91 
Ghost conducts Scrooge to a churchyard — p. 92 
points to a tombstone — p. 92 
Scrooge reads the name there — p. 92 
Scrooge's agony — p. 92 
Scrooge prays — p. 93 
The Ghost dwindles to a bedpost — p. 93 
Scrooge's conversion — pp. 93-100 
Scrooge awakes — p. 93 

grasps the bedcurtains — p. 94 
his resolutions — p. 94 
his laughter — p. 94 
Scrooge's encounter with the boy- — pp. 95-96 

The Big Turkey for the Cratcliits— p. 96 
Scrooge's encounter with the portly gentleman — p. 97 
Scrooge's visit to his nephew — p. 98 
Scrooge and his clerk — pp. 99-100 
Scrooge of the Future — p. 100 



A CHRISTMAS CAROL 105 



NOTES 



Page 15 

1 — A Christmas Carol is a Christmas song. A very beau- 
tiful one is : 

Christ was born on Christmas Day, 
Wreathe the holly, twine the bay; 
Christus natus hodie : 
The Babe, the Son, the Holy One of Mary. 

He is born to set us free, 
He is born Our Lord to be; 
Ex Maria Virgine: 
The God, the Lord, by all adored forever. 

Let the bright red berries glow 
Everywhere in goodly show; 
Christus natus hodie: 
The Babe, the Son, the Holy One of Mary. 

Christian men rejoice and sing; 
'Tis the birthday of a King; 
Ex Maria Virgine: 
The God, the Lord, by all adored forever. 

Night of sadness, morn of gladness evermore. 
Ever, ever, after many troubles sore, 
Morn of gladness evermore and evermore. 

Midnight scarcely passed and over, 

Drawing to this holy morn, 
Very early, very early, 

Christ was born. 

Sing out with bliss, His name is this : 

Emmanuel ; 
As was foretold in days of old 

By Gabriel. 

2 — But Dickens' carol is not in verse as the above, which is 
divided into stanzas. So he calls the different parts of the 



106 LOYOLA ENGLISH CLASSICS 

carol not stanzas, but staves, in whimsical humor. For Dickens 
would have his Christmas story a Christmas song. 

The story sings from end to end like a happy 
man going home; and like a happy and good 
man, when it cannot sing, it yells. It is lyric and 
exclamatory from the first exclamatory words of 
it. It is strictly a Christmas Carol. Chesterton. 

This facetious naming of chapters was used at other times 
by Dickens. In The Cricket on the Hearth, another of the 
Christmas stories of Dickens, the chapters are called "Chirp 
the First, Chirp the Second, Chirp the Third." The divisions 
in his stoT\,The Chimes, are called "The First Quarter, The 
Second Quarter, The Third Quarter, The Fourth Quarter." 

3 — The title. Marley's Ghost, is a bit startling, but captures 
our attention even before the story starts, for everybody has 
an interest in ghosts. 

4— The register of Marley's burial WAS SIGNED by the 
clergyman, but Scrooge SIGNED it. Note the change from 
the passive voice WAS SIGNED to the active SIGNED. 
This device, besides adding variety of sentence-structure serves 
to bring Scrooge more vividly before us. This picture of 
Scrooge signing the burial register of Marley is the first 
picture we have of Scrooge ; we are to see him in all sorts of 
pictures before the story is ended. It is his story. 

5 — There is a quiet humor in the comparisons Dickens uses, 
as here, Dead as a door-nail, and later Solitary as an oyster. 
Browning has written: "a man as dead as nail in post of 
door." 

6 — Observe the power of the repeated word sole. It fully 
convinces us that Scrooge knew that Marley was dead. 

Page 16 

1 — St. Paul's Churchyard was a crooked street — that is why 
it was breezy — around St. Paul's Cathedral; here in earlier 
days had been the coffee-houses frequented by Dr. Johnson 
and Oliver Goldsmith, and in still earlier days the publication 
quarters of some of Shakespeare's plays. 

2 — Note how froze is particularized by its effects into 



A CHRISTMAS CAROL 107 

nipped, shrivelled, stiffened, made blue. 

3 — Features is general; the particulars are shortly given: 
nose, cheek, eyes, voice, head, eyebrows, chin. 

4 — Here we have Scrooge's character as he was in himself, 
described powerfully. 

5 — Here he is described in relation to the weather. 

Page 17 

1 — And here he is described in relation to other people. 
These three paragraphs make a splendid character descrip- 
tion. Note how Dickens has slyly insinuated wholesome humor 
into this entire description of a man who seemed to have no 
sense of it. 

2 — The expression nuts is now slang and means a source of 
great pleasure or delight. 

3 — The paragraph is a picturesque description of London 
fog. Thus the story opens in a murky gloom with the murky 
character of Scrooge. Writers often make scenes to suit the 
characters. 

Page 18 

1 — This comforter will be an almost unfailing accompani- 
ment of the clerk. 

2 — Xow begins a contrast (always a fine thing in a story) 
between Scrooge and his nephew. 

3 — The suddenness of this entrance of the nephew is made 
more real b} T the fact that the sentence uses no connective. 

4 — The nephew answers his uncle's questions by questions 
of his own. Notice the parallels to Scrooge's speech. 

5 — It was the custom in medieval times to bury a murderer 
at a cross-roads with a stake driven through his heart. Dickens 
alludes to this and makes Scrooge wish all wishers of Merry 
Christinas to be buried like murderers with a stake of HOLLY 
driven through their hearts. 

Page 19 

1 — Here we get something of the real Christmas spirit, as 
though Dickens could keep it back no longer. The paragraph 
is a memory gem. 

2 — You pity the poor clerk putting out his spark of fire, 
but you have to smile a little, too. The clerk is probably 
thinking of his own Christmas celebration to come later in the 
story, all simple and wonderful. 



108 LOYOLA ENGLISH CLASSICS 

3 — Don't forget this invitation. It will yet be accepted. 

4 — Notice the dramatic way in which Dickens handles this 
scene. The Carol has, indeed, been dramatized and acted, as 
have many of Dickens' stories. 

Page 20 

1 — Bedlam was a madhouse. The name was originally ap- 
plied to the Hospital of St. Mary of Bethlehem in London. 

2 — Dickens has various ways of reminding us that Marley 
is dead. 

Page 21 

1 — There is a touch of sarcasm here. No wonder people 
sometimes called Scrooge, Marley. 

2 — A workhouse was a house for paupers able to work. 

3 — The Treadmill was used in certain prisons for punish- 
ments. 

4 — The Poor Law was a compulsory taxing of the people in 
order to provide money for the poor. 

Page 22 

1 — Scrooge has acted throughout in keeping with his char- 
acter. 

2 — Links were torches made of tow and pitch. 

Page 23 

1 — Notice the piling up of participles, here used as adverbs, 
to modify cold. Adverbs can often give a picturesque effect. 

2 — According to the old legend St. Dunstan was once 
tempted by the devil who appeared to him in the form of a 
beautiful woman while the saint was working at his forge, 
for St. Dunstan besides being a painter, statesman, musician 
was also a skilled worker in metals. St. Dunstan warded off 
the temptation by seizing the devil's nose with red-hot tongs. 

3 — The owner of one scant young nose, is a humorous sug- 
gestion of a boy. True literature is full of suggestion, but 
science must tell things outright. 

4 — The situation is altogether delightfully comic and 
Dickens-like. Here is Scrooge who wants to have nothing to 
do with Christmas at first overwhelmed with Christmas wishes 
from his nephew, then regaled by an unknown youngster with 
a Christmas Carol, and to crown it all Dickens writes a 
Christmas Carol all about Scrooge himself. 



A CHRISTMAS CAROL 109 

5 — Scrooge is to have a fine and glorious encounter with 
another urchin before the story is done. This subtle prepara- 
tion for later incidents is what a story-teller must be careful 
of in his work. ' 

6 — A crown is a coin of England, stamped with a crown, 
and worth about $1.25. 

Page 24 

1 — Scrooge avoids the very name of Christmas. It is only 
the twenty-fifth of December for him. 

2 — We shall see. that as a matter of fact, the clerk came 
late. 

3 — Bornhill is a crowded street of London. 

4 — Camden Town, where Dickens had himself lived in his 
youth, was a district of London, once outside the city proper, 
but now included in the city itself. 

5 — Contrast the exit of Scrooge with the exit of his clerk. 
It is not the rich people who have all the fun in life, seems to 
be what Dickens is cautiously insinuating. 

6 — Marley's suite of rooms is a fitting place for the appear- 
ance of his ghost. 

7 — Notice how the fog and the cold have progressed with 
the progress of the story. 

Page 25 

1 — Dickens has been hinting humor. We are now to get a 
hint of horror. 

Page 26 

1 — The mention of the ghost now naturally suggests the 
idea of a hearse. 

2 — A splinter-bar is a cross-bar in front of a vehicle. It 
is also called a whiffle-tree. 

3 — A dip is a candle. 

4 — A hob is a shelf over the fire. 

5 — Get this picture of Scrooge looking into impossible 
places. 

6 — The details — one candle, a very low fire — are in keeping 
with Scrooge's character. 

Page 27 

1 — Butter toats are small dishes for holding melted butter. 

2 — The Bible tells the story of Aaron's rod, which swallowed 
up the rods of the Egyptian magicians. Exodus VII, 1-13. 



110 LOYOLA ENGLISH CLASSICS 

3 — Dickens knows all the details of a haunted house, and 
he uses them. He was a master of detail, as you will observe 
throughout the story. 

Page 28 

1 — Notice all along here the light touches of humor, which 
give a tone of probability and naturalness to the incidents. 

Page 29 

1 — Marley must often have sat by that fireplace during his 
lifetime. 

2 — Notice how appropriate are the different words for a 
piece: a BIT of beef, a BLOT of mustard, a CRUMB of 
cheese, a FRAGMENT of potato. Humor lurks in the words. 

3 — Dickens is giving us a delicate suggestion of Marley's 
present state. 

Page 30 

1 — I wear the chain I forged in life are the words that 
everybody can say after death. As your life has been so will 
your eternity be. Dickens here suggests the moral of the tale. 

Page 31 

1 — We have here a pithy description of the pains of hell: 
No rest, no peace. Incessant torture of remorse. Mem- 
orize it. 

Page 32 

1 — Marley is anxious to have Scrooge profit by his own 
dread example. 

2 — The repetition of the word business is emphatic. It is 
also bitter for Scrooge, who has just used the word. In Stave 
One he had said. It's not my business, and later he is to see a 
strange knot of business men. 

3 — Dickens here lets us see the real reason for charity to 
the poor, — because Christ Himself chose to be poor. 

4 — A cold sweat is not an unusual phenomenon in fright. 
Scrooge is thoroughly scared now. Dickens plays on all our 
emotions. 

Page 33 

1 — Dickens forecasts the course of the story. 

2 — This is an awesome suggestion of the regrets of the 
damned, to which Mariev is destined to listen forever. 



A CHRISTMAS CAROL 111 

Page 34 

1 — If Scrooge is ever to do good, it must be now while he 
is still alive. There is a strength in the position of the word 
forever at the enrl of the sentence and paragraph. 

2 — Here we have summed up the events of the story so far. 

Page 35 

1 — A repeater is a watch which upon the touching of a 
spring, strikes the last hour. 

2 — Scrooge is certainly very much alarmed. Just now he 
was thinking it might be twelve noon, and yet it was so dark 
he groped his way. 

3 — The quiet is propitious for the entrance of a ghost. 

4 — Dickens probably had the repeater in mind when he 
made use of this comparison. 

Page 36 

1 — Note how the words deep, dull, hollow, melancholy 

ONE, imitate the sound. This suiting of sound to sense is 
called Onomatopoeia. 

2 — By such little expressions as I tell you, we are made 
aware again and again, that we are being told a story. Such 
expressions, too, have the charm, of making us feel that the 
teller is perfectly at home with us that he treats us so famil- 
iarly. 

3 — It is the Ghost of Scrooge's childhood— therefore like a 
child. But that childhood is long past for Scrooge, and so it 
seems to have about it something of old age. 

Page 37 

1 — Perhaps Scrooge cannot help thinking of the belt Marley 
wore, all made of chain. 

2 — Memory retains indistinct conceptions of far off events, 
and so the Ghost of the long past is made to seem changing. 

3 — Scrooge's own Christinas clays as a youngster.were truly 
far distant in every way from his present Christmas. 

Page 38 

1 — To bonnet means to get rid of. 

Page 39 

1 — Thus suddenly is Scrooge's past upon him. 
2— It is strange that odors should recall things to memory, 
but it is an established fact that such is the case. 



112 LOYOLA ENGLISH CLASSICS 

3 — Just a few details are mentioned but they are salient 
ones, — the bridge, the church, the winding river. 

Page 40 

1 — Dickens returns Scrooge's own ideas back at him. Notice 
all through how the story refers to former incidents and hints 
at future ones. It is Dickens' economy of incident, and makes 
the story more one completed whole. 

Page 41 

1 — Ali Baba is a character in "The Forty Thieves/' a tale 
from the Arabian Night*. 

2 — The story of Valentine and Orson relates the adventures 
of twins, one at court, the other in the forest, and was long 
popular with children. 

'6 — The person referred to is Benredden Hassan, from the 
Arabian Nights. 

4 — This lonely childhood made glad only by books was 
Dickens' own, and one of iiis own favorite books was Arabian 
Nights. 

Page 42 

1 — The common everyday comparisons' of life are used by 
Dickens with discriminating' beauty. Wordsworth sings of 
the "kindred points of heaven and home," and we often speak 
of our home in heaven. Dickens knows the common j)eople 

and their ways and speech. 

Page 43 

1 — Tor the first time now a woman enters the story and 
there is a brighter atmosphere and a greater gentleness. 

2 — First Scrooge was reminded of the owner of the scant 
young nose, now he is reminded of his nephew. Scrooge can 
never forget this Christmas Eve and every detail of it. 

Page 44 

1 — There is an undehnable appropriateness in the names 
Dickens gives to his people. Note Fezziwig and Scrooge in 
this story. 

2 — Dickens is fond of piling up words. What different 
adjectives are here from those Dickens had applied to Scrooge 
in the very beginning of the story] 



A CHRISTMAS CAROL 113 

Page 45 

1 — The character of Fezziwig is revealed in his actions. 
2 — Dickens enjoyed writing such comparisons as Solitary 
as an oyster, timed like fifty stomach-aches. 

3 — The ordinary human being smiles casual smiles, that 
come and then go. Not so, Mrs. Fezziwig. She WAS a smile, 
one vast, substantial smile, It makes you think of the 
Cheshire Cat in Alice in Wonderland. 

4— There were only THREE Miss Fezziwigs, but there were 
SIX young followers. 

Page 46 

l_Biekens has packed a world of action in this paragraph. 

2 — Negus was a drink made by mixing lemonade and wine. 

3 — The repetition of the conjunction and gives here a notion 
of jollity and abundance. 

4 — Sir Roger de Coverley was the name of an old country 
dance. 

5 — A cut is a step which involves springing from the ground 
and rapidly moving the feet alternately in front of each other 
before alighting again. 

Page 47 

l_Hear the crowd fling back the greeting Merry Christmas, 
— and to think Scrooge is listening to it all ! 

2 — Scrooge realizes he is speaking out of character. Notice 
as you go along the gradual change in Scrooge. 

Page 48 

1— A great gift is being vouchsafed to Scrooge, the gift for 
which Burns prayed : 

"0 wad some power the giftie gie us 
To see oursel's as others see us." 

Page 49 

l_Xhe girl fairly shows Scrooge what he is becoming. The 
whole past story of the life of Scrooge is acted out for us. 

Page 50 

l_The reference here is to the lines of Wordsworth : 

"The cattle are grazing, 
Their heads never raising, 
There are forty feeding like one." 



114 LOYOLA ENGLISH CLASSICS 

Dickens playfully reverses the simile. 

Page 51 

1 — Enjoy in this paragraph Dickens' tender way of telling 
what was going on, by putting himself in fancy there. Dickens 
filled his writings with such touches of human nture as this 
scene records. 

2 — A knocking at the door is a signal for renewed interest. 
Dickens piques our curiosity in every way he knows and does 
it simply. Shakespeare lias immortalized a different kind of 
knocking at the gate in Macbeth. 

3 — The whole paragraph is a rush of incident : the knock, 
the rush to the door, the shouts, the struggle, the fright, the 
joy, — then bed and — peace. 

4 — Scrooge is the villian and the hero of the story and the 
author must always come back to him. He does so in a variety 
of ways and scenes. 

Page 53 

1 — This is a forceful way of reminding us that truth will 
win out. "What is. is." 

2 — Kemember that just before the appearance of the pre- 
ceding ghost, because it had not appeared exactly on time, 
Scrooge was triumphant ; now he trembles. He seems to know 
there is no escape from this encounter, and he must suppose 
that now Christmas Present will come and he fears the inter- 
view will not be pleasant and is anxious to have it over. 

Page 54 

1 — Shuffled in his slippers gives us onomatopoeia again. 
Dickens does everything to make the whole story alive for us. 
He has made us hear bells, clanking of chains, knocking at 
the door. 

2 — Brawn is the name given to the flesh of boar or swine, 
boiled, pickled and pressed. 

3 — Twelfth cakes were special cakes baked for children's 
parties to be celebrated on the Feast of the Epiphany, January 
6th, called Little Christmas. 

4 — This jolly giant can be none other than Santa Claus. 

5 — Plenty's Horn is also known as the Cornucopia, and 
represents the great horn from which the goddess Ceres dis- 
tributed the fruits of the earth to mortal men. 



A CHRISTMAS CAROL 115 

Page 55 

1 — Dickens describes each ghost's middle. Recall how Mar- 
ley's ghost was girded and how the ghost of Christmas Past 
was belted. "I wear the chain I forged in life." 

2 — Dickens here alludes to Christ, the Prince of Peace and 
to the fact that when He was born the whole world was at 
peace. 

Page 56 

1 — Dickens thinks of sights enough to interest the eye and 
he is lavish in sounds to interest the ear. 

2 — Take note of the details which serve to bring the whole 
picture vividly before us. 

Page 57 

1— Biffins are especially fine red apples from Norfolk 
County in England. 

2_ Our sense of touch has felt the comfortable warmth of 
fire, the jolly movement of the Fezziwig dance: onr sense of 
sight has seen Santa Claus and the beautiful young girl: our 
sense of sound has heard the music of shovelled snow: our 
sense of taste has been regaled with apples, grapes, oranges: 
another sense remains to be appealed to and Dickens furnishes 
us with the smell of tea and coffee. Dickens pictures for us 
a merry world. 

Page 58 

l_Dickens here refers to the words of Shakespeare in the 

play of Othello: 

"But I will wear my heart upon my sleeve 
For daws to peck at." 
He would show by this reference the openheartedness which 
should prevail at Christmas time. 

2_Just putting all after good people, sounds pleasanter 
than saying all good people. 

3 — It was customary for poor people in England to carry 
their dinners to public ovens and there have them cooked. 

4— Dickens had a perfect knack of writing down such in- 
teresting details, as a thawed blotch. 



116 LOYOLA ENGLISH CLASSICS 

Page 60 

1 — A bob is a slang' term for a shilling'. 

2 — Dickens makes even the potatoes happy and merry. 

Page 61 

1 — The homely details recorded of Martha's return are 
touching in their simplicity, and show by the power of sug- 
gestion the atmosphere which prevails in the Cratchits' home. 

2 — In the creation of just such little children as Tiny Tim 
Dickens has achieved renown. Xow we must always see Tiny 
Tim with his little crutch; as we get to know Bob is at hand 
by the comforter. 

3 — Even the pudding sings. Scrooge seems utterly out of 
place here and Dickens does not mention him now. 

Page 62 

1 — The spiritual element can never be entirely absent from 
a real Christmas. 

2 — This explains the reference to the lame, walking; and 
explains why everybody was kind to Tiny Tim. 

3 — The little Cratchits thus seem to anticipate with high 
gusto the good taste to come. 

Page 63 

1 — Dickens at this juncture simply had to turn to song and 
the words almost sing for themselves : 

Beat on the table with the handle of his knife, 
And feebly cried "hurrah!". 
2 — Dickens just adds the lightest fact of one small atom 
and he has won a smile. 

3 — Perhaps no pudding in all literature has entered on the 
scene in quite so picturesque a way as this pudding of the 
Cratchits'. 

Page 64 

1 — God bless us every one! These are the only words of 
Tiny Tim, besides Hurrah, and how beautiful they are from 
a crippled child. "A little child shall lead them." Later 
Tiny Tim sings but we are not told what the words were. 

2 — The misfortune of Tiny Tim so sweetly borne, is in 
contrast to the fearful state of Scrooge's conscience, and so 
Scrooge is attain brought before us. 



A CHRISTMAS CAROL 117 

Page 65 

1 — Scrooge is again seeing himself as others see him. It 
is the lesson he needs. 

Page 66 

l__Notice the skilful weaving of the sentences simple, 
complex and compound in this paragraph. 

Page 67 

1 Dickens has a way with mobs of people, and all his 

books and stories are very thickly populated. He must love 
the common people he makes so many of them. 

2— Dickens makes the lamplighter a poetic figure, dotting 
the dusky street with specks of light. Perhaps the little 
Cratchits had often seen the lamplighter and loved to see him 
and they each one sang with Stevenson's child: 

For we are very lucky with a lamp before the door, 
And Leerie stops to light it as he lights so many more ; 
And oh, before you hurry by with ladder and with light, 
Leerie, see a little child and nod to him to-night! 

Page 68 

l_Notice the three words— rolled, roared, raged^-each be- 
ginning with the same letter. This is called alliteration. 
There is onomatopoeia here too. 

Page 69 

l_The similg? of the figure-head of an old ship is peculiarly 

appropriate here. 

2_How rapidly and simply this whole survey of the ship 

has been made. 

Pase 70 

1— Such a wonderful laugh of the nephew of Scrooge seems 
to make him no relative whatever of Scrooge. We shall see 
that that laugh is practically a family characteristic and that 
Scrooge will indulge in it again. 

Page 71 

l_This sarcastic remark of the nephew is purposely used 
to draw out other remarks from the party. 

Page 72 

1— Dickens knows well the simple delights of old Christ- 
masses. 



118 LOYOLA ENGLISH CLASSICS 

Page 74 

1 — Dickens shows the heartiness of the laughter by the ef- 
fects of it. 

2 — Mulled wine is wine flavored with spiees. 

Page 75 

1 — Emphasis is here put on much and far by the simple 
device of putting these words first in their setting'. 

Page 76 

1 — Dickens is here on favorite ground, the ragged, humble 
miseries of the children of the poor. 

2 — Against these two, Ignorance and Want, Dickens has 
striven in many of his works. 

Page 77 

1 — The delay, to pile up adverbs, helps us to realize the slow 
silence of the ghost's approach. 

2 — Ghosts are mostly in white, but the black garment of 
this one adds to the horror and appropriately is the Ghost 
of the future in black for the future is black and unknown 
to us. 

3 — Scrooge shows that he is rapidly learning. 

Page 78 

1 — Note the fine force of this detail. 

2 — This one great heap of black is forceful. It is in vio- 
lent contrast to what we have learnt of the other ghosts in 
the story. They each had a light. 

3— The First Spirit had said: Rise and walk with me. To 
the Second Spirit Scrooge had submissively said: Conduct 
me where you will. Now, more alert and humbled than ever 
Scrooge simply says : Lead on. 

4 — The first ghost had borne Scrooge away w r ith a ghostly 
hand on Scrooge's heart. The second ghost was satisfied to 
have Scrooge hold fast to the spirit robe. Now Scrooge fol- 
lows in the shadow of the ghost's dress. Dickens has varied 
all the appearances in every detail bringing out thus clearly 
the change in Scrooge. 
Page 79 

1 — The First Spirit had largely shown Humor, the second 
had given us Pathos. We are now to sup full with horrors. 
The horror will grow as the story unfolds and it all hinges 
on this man's death. 



A CHRISTMAS CAROL 119 

2 — Yawning, and laughing and taking snuff these men dis- 
cuss a person's death. One of these men has a monstrous 
chin, one has an excrescence on the end of his nose. Xote how 
Dickens describes rich men repulsively. 

Page 80 

1— Old Scratch is the Devil. 

Page 81 

1 — A penthouse is a shed built with a sloping roof and at- 
tached to the wall of a building. 

2 — Take note of the significant details of this picture, and 
of the preceding and the following pictures as well. 

Page 82 

1 — Charwoman is a word used to denote a woman employed 
generally by the day to do common small tasks around the 
house. 

Page 83 

1 — Dickens is all the time suggesting the horror of a death- 
bed scene. All this is to be the final effort to convert Scrooge. 
Page 84 

1 — The handling of dialogue, is one of the things a story- 
teller must master. A lively dialogue, such as Dickens writes, 
makes the story dramatic and lively. 

Page 85 

1 — It is a terrible fact that laughter can be horrible. 

Page 86 

1 — Suspense is cleverly sustained by the circumstance that 
the corpse is covered and that Scrooge refuses to unveil the 
face. 

2 — This entire paragraph is a good example of apostrophe. 
The solemnity of it all is increased by the frequency of .lie 
letter d. 

Page 87 

1 — Dickens here develops the thought she was anxious by 
details that are of the simplest kind, but striking in their 
naturalness. 

Page 88 

1 — Dickens suggests the situation by the dialogue. 

2 — The paragraph is a perfect picture of quiet. It begins 



120 LOYOLA ENGLISH CLASSICS 

and ends with quiet. This tenderly pathetic scene in the 
Oak-hits' household is a splendid example of Dickens' power 
of relating sorrowful scenes. 

Page 89 

1 — Dickens knew very well the beautiful unaffected kind- 
nesses which the poor show one to another. 

Page 90 

1 — The charming and touching simplicity of the picture of 
Bob as he kissed the little face is one of the things that made 
Dickens dear to the whole of humanity. 

Page 91 

1 — Dickens' apostrophe here to the spirit of Tiny Tim 
shows the deep emotion of this whole passage. 

Page 92 

1 — The hand is a significant detail of the third ghost. Re- 
call all its various mentions in this Stave. 

2 — One of our first pictures of Scrooge was that in which we 
saw him in his office. Now that office holds a figure not him- 
self. The incident is abrupt and interesting. 

3 — Dickens has carefully and solemnly led us on to this 
dramatic and awful climax. The story can now come rapidly 
to a close. The worst is told. It is for Scrooge to be con- 
verted or not. 

4 — This ghost has uttered no word. This fact seems to 
bring our the mysteriousness of the future. The hand of the 
ghost points out the various scenes, as if, by a kind of con- 
tradiction, even the future can be a warning to us. 

Page 93 

1 — "Coming events east their shadows before.'' The shadow 
in this case was a substantial ghost. 

2 — "No author indeed could draw more powerfully than he 
[Dickens] the mood of a man haunted by a fixed idea, a 
shadowy apprehension, a fear, a dream, a remorse," B. H. 
JIutton. Notice the truth of this observation throughout the 
whole little story of Scrooge. 

3 — The repetition of his own is emphatic. Scrooge could 
not forg;et that the name on the tombstone was also his own; 
and the echoes of his own here bring back that dreadful sight. 

4 — Scrooge cannot forget those three names. 



A CHRISTMAS CAROL 121 

5 — Scrooge was on his knees before but his prayer was a far 
different one. 

Page 94 

1 — "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure/' is 
what Scrooge has learnt. 

2 — Laocoon was a priest of Troy who, together with his two 
sons, was crushed to death by serpents as he was sacrificing at 
the altar. Virgil tells the story in the xVeneid. Such reference 
to some well known fact, book, poem, picture, is the figure of 
allusion. It appeals to the imagination of the reader and 
brightens up the page. 

3 — There seems nothing common to a feather, an angel, a 
schoolboy, a drunken man, but the mingling of them all 
together gives indication of the excessive light heartedness of 
Scrooge. 

4 — Before Scrooge would not wish "Merry Christmas" even 
to his nephew. Now he wishes it to everybody. 

Page 95 

1 — See how the very weather changes with the change in 
Scrooge. 

2 — Walker is slang for an expression of surprise and dis- 
belief. 
Page 96 

1 — Jce Miller was an English comedian famous for his 
jokes. 

2 — It was the knocker that had started the whole thing. See 
how Dickens gradually gathers together again all the threads 
of the story. 

3 — This suggests the size and fatness of the bird. Literature 
likes to employ such suggestions instead of direct statement. 

4 — Count the chuckles in this paragraph. 

Page 97 

1 — There was a time (recall Stave One) when nobody said 
even My dear Scrooge, how are you? to him. 

2 — It is much more effective to have Scrooge thus whisper 
the sum he offers. We can imagine it as large as we please. 

3 — Scrooge, here thinking of Christmas Past, fears Christ- 
mas to come and makes sure of Christmas Present. 

4 — In Stave One Scrooge said to the gentlemen: I wish to 
be let alone. 



122 LOYOLA ENGLISH CLASSICS 

Page 98 

1 — There is a picture in the word sidled. It is much more 
effective than "put his face in. v 

2 — His nephew had invited him to dinner in the early part 
of the story* Eealize now the carefulness with which Dickens 
has long hefore prepared for the ending of the story. 

Page 99 

1 — This incident, too, has been foreseen. Only, Scrooge 
had meant something very different on that former occasion. 
2 — A strait- waistcoat is a strait- jacket. 

Page 100 

1 — Bishop is a hot drink made from wine, sugar, oranges, 
spices, etc. 

2 — All the time Dickens has been not so much telling us that 
Scrooge has changed as SHOWING us. 

3 — The universality of the blessing is a pleasing Christmas 
wish, and a most charming ending to this tale of Christmas. 



A CHRISTMAS CAROL 12< 



QUESTIONS ON STAVE ONE 



1 — How old do you think Scrooge was at the time of the 
story ? 

2 — What do you take to be the nature of Scrooge's busi- 
ness ? 

3 — What is meant by 'Change? 

4 — What country does Dickens refer to in the clause the 
Country's done for? 

5 — Why is Country written with a capital? 
C — What is the distinction in the legal terms executor, 
administrator, assign, legatee? 
7 — Who wrote Hamlet? 

8 — What do you think made Scrooge so busy in his count- 
ing house? 

9 — What are some favorite expressions of Scrooge? 
10 — What is the besetting fault of Scrooge ? 
11 — What does anonymous mean? 

12 — What establishments does Scrooge help to support? 
13 — What is a brasier? 

14 — How does Dickens bring out the contrast between the 
Lord Mayor and the little tailor? 

15 — What seems to be Scrooge's favorite reading? 
16 — What part of the newspapers do you think he turns to 
with greatest interest? 

17 — What is the appropriateness of having Marley's chain 
made of cash-boxes, keys, etc.. wrought in steel? 

18 — What other words besides ghost are used to describe 
Marley ? 

19 — Why did the ghost's jaw drop down upon its breast 
when the bandage was removed? 

20 — What are some of the particular details of Marley's 
incessant torture of remorse? 

21 — Which do you think is the most interesting picture in 
Stave One? 

QUESTIONS ON STAVE TWO 

1 — What are ferret eyes? 

2 — What details are made use of to bring out the ghostly 
character of this second appearance? 



124 LOYOLA ENGLISH CLASSICS 

3 — What makes Scrooge, after the Fezziwig ball, think of 
his clerk ? 

4 — What is the golden idol that has displaced the fair 
young girl in Scrooge's estimation'? 

5 — Why is the fair young girl in mourning dress? 

6 — What contract had been made between Scrooge and the 
fair young girl? 

7 — What is Scrooge's first name? 

8 — What books was the lonely boy reading? 

9 — What advance in the story has been made by the inci- 
dents in Stave Two? 

10 — What picture do you like best of the pictures in Stave 
Two? 

QUESTIONS ON STAVE THREE 

1 — What is spontaneous combustion? 

2 — In what way does Dickens show that Scrooge is becom- 
ing a different kind of man? 

3 — Are any other parts of the story suggested or referred 
to in this stave? 

4— What are they? 

5 — Why does the ghost show Scrooge the scenes of Christ- 
mas in the miner's hut and in the lighthouse keeper's place? 

6 —What is the nephew's opinion of his uncle? 

7 — Who is Topper? 

8 — How do you know that Scrooge enjoyed the games in 
his nephew's house? 

9 — What other eatables might Dickens have "mentioned 
which would be procurable in the grocers'? 

10 — Which of the three — humor, pathos, horror — is most 
predominant in this stave? 

11 — What other shop windows might Dickens have described 
besides the fruiterers' and the grocers'? 

QUESTIONS ON STAVE FOUR 

1 — What is the most powerful scene shown to Scrooge by 
this ghost of Christmas Yet to Come? 

2 — What details make the death bed scene so ghastly? 

3 — Why are Caroline and her husband pleased at Scrooge's 

death? 



A CHRISTMAS CAROL 125 

4 — What other emotions are caused in other people by the 
death of Scrooge? 

5 — How has Dickens kept up the suspense in this stave? 
G — What especial appropriateness is there in having the 
laundress, the charwoman, the undertaker's man discuss 
Scrooge's property ? 

7 — How is it that Scrooge finds his bed uncurtained? 
8 — Are there any touches of humor in Stave Four? 
9 — Is there any relief from the horror of this stave? 
10 — What was the writing that Scrooge would sponge away ? 
11 — Has Scrooge correctly guessed what the short talk 
between the two persons in the beginning of this stave meant? 

QUESTIONS OX STAVE FIVE 

1 — On what other occasion was Scrooge in a frisking 
mood? 

2 — What seems to be Scrooge's favorite expression now? 

3 — What was it in the beginning of the story? 

4 — Do you think .the boy in this stave is the same as the 
one who tried to sing a Christmas Carol at Scrooge in the first 
part of the tale? 

5 — What long word was the portly gentleman going to 
finish when lie started munifi — ? 

6 — Is the old gentleman's I will correct, or should it be: 
"I shall"? 

7 — What city is the good old city? 

S — What is there specially fitting in having the story end 
with Tinv Tim? 



126 LOYOLA ENGLISH CLASSICS 



EXERCISES 



1 — Write out a cast of characters in the order of appear- 
ance. 

2 — Write out a cast of characters in the order of import- 
ance. 

3 — Make a list of the places mentioned in the story. 
4 — Name some humorous situations. 
5 — Name some pathetic situations. 
6 — Name some situations of horror. 

7 — Pick out ten scene> for an illustrated edition of the 
Carol. 

8 — Make appropriate quotations from the Carol for the 
pictures. 

9 — Pick out examples of Dickens' piling up of adjectives. 
10 — Write a summary of the Christmas Carol in about fifty 
words. 

11 — Spend ten minutes writing out simple sentences from 
the Carol. 

12 — Spend ten minutes writing out complex sentences. 
13 — Spend ten minutes writing out compound sentences. 
11 — Write out from the story a list of words which are new 
to you or whose meanings you do not know. 

15 — Discuss the question. "What is the most interesting part 
of the Christmas Carol f 

16 — Make a list of the exclamations used in the story. 
17 — Continue the description of the Crate-hits' pudding, 
stating what remark each single Cratehit made upon it. 

18 — Justify from the incidents of the story the adjectives 
used of Scrooge in the beginning. 

19 — Discuss the making of a "movie" of the Carol. 

20 — Prove from the Carol the truth of William Lyon Phelps' 

criticism : "His zest for life is shown in the way he describes 

a frosty winter morning .... and the naive delight he takes 

in the enormous meals his characters devour. He fills the 

hungry with good things In Dickens there is a vast 

amount of beef, mutton, vegetables, pudding, and beer." 

21 — Apply the following ((notations to some apt part of the 
story : 



A CHRISTMAS CAROL 127 

a) "My friend, I tell thee, even the dead 
Have strength, their putrid shrouds within, 

To blast and torture." Shelley . 

b) "Ghost-like I paced round the haunts of rny child- 

hood." Lamb. 



) "I look for ghosts." Wordsworth. 



d) "To shuddering' Want's unmantled bed 

Thy horror-breathing' agues cease to lend." 

Campbell. 

e) "The world is too much with us; late and soon, 
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers." 

Wordsworth. 

f) "0 youth! for years so many and sweet, 

Tis known that Thou and I were one." Coleridge. 

g) "111 fares the land to hastening ills a prey, 
Where wealth accumulates and men decay." 

Goldsmith. 

h) "The latent splendor of the commonplace. " 

Joyce Kilmer. 
i) "Babies roll'd about 

Like tumbled fruit in grass." Tennyson. 

j) "We are time's subjects, and time bids be gone." 

Shakespeare. 

k) "0 sleep, gentle sleep, 

Nature's soft nurse, how have I frighted thee, 
That thou no more wilt weigh my eyelids down, 
And steep my senses in forgetfulness." Shakespeare. 

1) "Oh, the little more and how much it is! 

And the little less, and what worlds away." 

Browning. 

m) "All worldy joys go less 

To the one joy of doing kindnesses." Herbert. 

n) "Strange secrets are let out by death 

Who blabs so oft the follv of this world." Browning. 



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